


Absolute Beginners

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2019-04-19 19:53:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 54,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14244558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Quinn moves in with Rachel while they are still in high school. This is sometimes memorable because Rachel aborts Puck's baby in this. Angst meter: Low***There is a lot of Rachel/Puck in this one, FYI. Rachel and Quinn have feelings for one another after sharing a drunken kiss. But they definitely do not want it to happen.Warnings for: High school abortion, miscarriage in adulthood and feeling like maybe God is punishing you for mistakes you made as an adolescent





	1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Absolute Beginners  
**Author:** Sulkygeek  
**Rating:** overall R  
**Length:** 5000+  
**Spoilers:** Through Sectionals  
**Summary:** There is a lot of Rachel/Puck in this one, FYI. Rachel and Quinn have feelings for one another after sharing a drunken kiss. But they definitely do not want it to happen.

Also, I totally stole this title from a David Bowie song.

Songs Referenced in this chapter, in order of appearance: Take a Bow (Madonna), Take a Chance on Me (ABBA), Maple Tree (Angel Taylor),

 

* * *

 

If she’d kept the baby, she probably wouldn’t be lying on the floor of their bedroom, the top of her head pressed to the top of Rachel’s, with one iPod between them and one ear bud for each of them, listening to an old Madonna song. Probably, anyway. Quinn wasn’t sure because it was highly possible Rachel would have been perfectly content to have the baby in the room with them, but Quinn didn’t plan on staking her life on it.

One year after having her baby and giving her up, Quinn still thought about the baby every now and then. She’d seen the baby, heard her first cry and saw a shock of very fine blonde hair. But she never saw the baby open her eyes. She thought it was likely that her daughter’s eyes were blue at birth-- weren’t baby’s eyes often blue at birth, but then changed to their permanent color over time? She still wondered sometimes, what color her daughter’s eyes really were. It was also probable that the baby’s hair darkened over time, too. Quinn wondered what her daughter looked like now. There was a part of her that only wondered because she was curious, and then there was another part which was albeit smaller that wondered because she genuinely wished she had her baby with her.

But she also knew that it was better this way. Her baby would have a better life with parents who actually wanted to be parents, and not two people who just sort of fell into the business of having a baby. And her life would be better, too. She could go to college and not worry about choosing a school that had residential housing that accommodated students with children, she didn’t have to worry about child care while she went to classes and she could have an actual life.

Her parents still weren’t talking to her, which hurt her feelings more than she wanted to acknowledge. But Rachel’s fathers were incredibly kind to her and when she made her pros and cons list about giving up Charlotte for adoption, they insisted they would be happy to help out with raising the baby. But Quinn knew that they hadn’t signed up to take on another mouth to feed, let alone two of them. And anyway, Rachel’s fathers were long past the time when they’d taken care of baby. It just wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t fair to ask Rachel to share her room with her _and_ a baby. Quinn knew it was better this way, but sometimes, it was hard to live with.

Quinn thought about how she probably wouldn’t be able to do this with Rachel, just hanging out in their bedroom and listening to music, if she’d kept the baby. And just like always, she felt that twinge in her heart, like Charlotte’s tiny fist was closing around it.

“I love this song,” Rachel said softly, the first words either of them said in an hour.

Quinn kept her eyes shut. She smiled lazily. “Me too,” she murmured. She heaved a deep, contented sigh.

 _I’ve always been in love with you, I guess you’ve always known it’s true_.

The song ended and the next song came up. It was Rachel’s turn, which meant, it was Rachel’s iPod they were using to do this. It was set to shuffle, but Quinn still had six nix cards left, which meant that she could demand Rachel press ‘next’ six more times and Rachel couldn’t protest. After that, Quinn would need to fight for it.

_”If you change your mind…”_

“Nix!” Quinn said, not bothering to open her eyes.

“Quinn! Who _doesn’t_ love ABBA?” Rachel demanded.

“Me.” Quinn said. “And I said ‘nix,’ which means you can’t argue.”

“Just wait until tomorrow when we use your iPod and I nix a song _you_ like,” Rachel grumbled, but pressed ‘next’ anyway.

Quinn hummed in approval when the new song appeared and they listened in contentment for a while.

_If you love me for the beauty of my personality, then I’ll stay here forever, don’t you see?_

“Hey,” Quinn said. “Do you love _me_ for the beauty of my personality?”

Rachel guffawed, and it was neither dainty nor subtle. “ _No_ ,” she said immediately, without even pausing to think about it. “Why would I do that?” She chuckled. “You have a _terrible_ personality.”

Quinn flung her arm out in an upward motion, and was pleased when her hand smacked against Rachel’s forehead. It wasn’t particularly hard, but it did make a satisfactory smacking sound.

“Hey!” Rachel complained.

Quinn had yet to open her eyes. “Tell me I have a great personality,” she demanded.

Rachel paused. “Or you’ll what?” she asked challengingly.

“Or I’ll smack you again.”

Rachel snorted. “Just watch my nose, okay?”

Quinn laughed and opened her eyes for the first time. She took the earbud out of her ear and rolled onto her stomach, so that she was resting on her elbows. She kissed Rachel’s forehead. “I’m not sure if I like it that you’re not intimidated by me anymore.”

Rachel’s eyes were closed, and she her lips curved slowly into a grin. She did not open her eyes. “You can’t have it both ways,” she said. “I can’t be intimidated by you and still be your friend,” she said. “And anyway, I was never intimidated by you,” she said. “So I guess we don’t have a choice but to be friends.”

“You could at least take me seriously when I say I’m going to smack you again.”

“Maybe I kind of like it when you do,” Rachel joked.

Quinn bit her lip while she stared down at Rachel’s face. Rachel just seemed completely relaxed and comfortable at the moment, and the brunette’s eyes were still closed which meant that Quinn could look at her, really look at her and not have to look away when they made eye contact.

“Rachel?”

Rachel cocked open one eye. “Are you going to lecture me about making jokes about domestic violence again? Because I _know_ it’s not funny.”

Quinn grinned and then shook her head. “No, but I still don’t see why you of all people would make jokes.”

“Noah thinks I’m funny.”

“ _Puck_ still thinks Jim Carey is funny.”

“His performance in _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_ was very moving.”

“I don’t think that’s Puck’s favorite Jim Carey movie,” Quinn said dryly.

Rachel grinned and opened her other eye. She was tired of her pirate vision. “What’s up?”

“We still haven’t talked about what happened last week,” Quinn said softly.

Rachel looked wary and sat up quickly. Quinn followed suit, and now they were both sitting.

“I thought we had an unspoken agreement to pretend that it never happened and life could go back to normal,” Rachel said, her tone cautious.

“I never agreed to that!”

“That’s why it’s _unspoken_ , Quinn.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “So, what, we just pretend that it never happened?”

“That’s _exactly_ what I just said.”

“I kissed you, and you _completely_ freaked out!”

“I did _not_ freak out.”

“You freaked out.”

Rachel was frustrated. “I don’t want to talk about this. Why do we have to talk about this? Isn’t just hanging out and just being friends better than talking about some stupid kiss?”

“ _Stupid?!_ ” Quinn demanded, because it was one thing for Rachel to not want to talk about their kiss, but it was a totally different thing to have Rachel describe it as “stupid.”

“Regrettable?”

“Thanks a _lot_ ,” Quinn huffed.

“I just don’t see why we need to talk about it.”

“So things don’t get weird.”

“And they’re so _un_ weird right now?”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Look, I just want to make sure that it doesn’t get weird or that you get the wrong impression or whatever. We were both drunk, and it was a mistake. You know Puck and those drinks he makes.”

“You can’t even _taste_ the alcohol,” Rachel agreed.

“I _know_ , right? I just want to clear the air, okay? It was just a drunken kiss, and I don’t want anything to happen or want anything from you. Okay?”

Rachel visibly brightened and appeared relieved. “That is? Really?”

“Yeah, so stop freaking out. Geez, when do _you_ not want to talk about something anyway?”

“Since the subject made me deeply uncomfortable?” Rachel joked, although there was definite truth there.

Quinn rolled her eyes and slapped Rachel’s upper arm.

Rachel grinned at her. “See? I told you I liked it.”

Quinn rolled her eyes again. “Ew,” she said. “You can just pay a guy to do that.” Quinn sucked in a sudden, deep breath, horrified by the thought that Rachel would share some exploits with Puck. “And do _not_ give me any details about what you and Puck do, okay? I don’t want to hear it. At all.”

“I thought you wanted to talk,” Rachel teased.

“Not about things that make _me_ deeply uncomfortable,” Quinn said with a grin. She paused and her smile dimmed slightly. “So, we’re okay, right? You and me?”

Rachel looked confused. “Haven’t we been okay? Did I make you think we weren’t?”

Quinn shook her head. “No. I just don’t want things to get weird.”

Rachel grinned. “Maybe if we stopped talking about it, they won’t.”

Quinn laughed and smacked Rachel’s arm again. “I was really drunk that night,” she said quietly. “I mean, when Finn dropped us off…” she trailed off.

“I remember,” Rachel said softly. She made a face. “Well, sort of anyway,” she said. “It’s kind of a blur. But I know we were both drunk.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said. “So drunk.”

It was a little foggy, primarily because Rachel’s most vivid memory of the experience was waking up on the floor next to her bed, the inside of her mouth feeling completely dry, her head pounding, her stomach rolling and feeling incredibly thirsty. She also vividly (much too vividly for her own comfort) remembered vomiting violently and swearing never ever to drink so much again.

But she did remember stumbling out of Finn’s car and falling onto the ground and then Quinn giggling and telling her to get up so that she could get out of the car, too. Finn, ever the gentleman, got out of the car and helped her up and reached his arm out to steady Quinn as she got out as well. She remembered being obnoxious with him and saying something about he could be the beanstalk that Jack climbed up and offered to demonstrate that he was climbable. (To this Quinn muttered “that’s gross” and started laughing, and Finn looked distinctly uncomfortable). He offered to walk them to the door, but they insisted they were fine, and then they linked arms and stumbled forward to the front door.

Once at the front door, Rachel and Quinn giggled and shushed one another and then Rachel began to dig through her purse for her keys out for what seemed like an interminable length of time.

“Hurry up,” Quinn whined. “I have to pee.” She slapped furiously at Rachel’s arm.

Rachel turned to look at her and moved her index finger up and down as she spoke. “Listen,” she said, her words somewhat slurred. “You rushing me will not make me find my keys quicker.” She frowned. “And if you need to pee, use _your_ key.”

“Ugh,” Quinn declared, grabbing Rachel’s purse away from her and opening it and pulling out Rachel’s keys very easily. “Your purse is the size of an _envelope_ , how could you not find these big ole things?” she said, waving the keys in Rachel’s face. She frowned and moved her head closer to the keys to peer at them intently (rather than moving the keys closer to her.) “Why do you have so many keys anyway?”

Rachel leaned against the frame of the front door and sighed mournfully. “You’ve caught me,” she said.

Quinn, who was sticking the key into the lock, turned to look at her. “What?” she asked, confused by the suddenly serious tone.

“All those other keys are for my secret families,” she said. “I have a husband and kids in all the major cities across the United States,” she declared dramatically.

Quinn chortled loudly and Rachel’s eyes widened and she stumbled forward to cover Quinn’s mouth with her hands.

“Shh…” Rachel whispered.

Quinn scowled at her, but nodded her head.

Rachel pulled her hands away and looked wary.

“Your hands smell like tequila,” Quinn stated.

Rachel and Quinn erupted into giggles.

“Okay, okay,” Rachel said. “Shh, seriously. Be quiet now.”

Quinn grinned and nodded. They exchanged a look and Quinn turned the key in the lock, and opened the door. They gave each other triumphant smiles and then Quinn pulled the key out and passed Rachel her bundle of keys. They turned back to wave at Finn, who’d been waiting the entire time for them to enter safely into the home. Finn shook his head, waved back and drove away.

Rachel held up one index finger, then her middle finger and finally her ring finger. Quinn nodded and they each quietly stepped into the house, closed the door behind them, and bolted as quickly and quietly as they could for their room. They entered into the bedroom, giggling quietly and then collapsed together onto Rachel’s bed. Rachel grabbed one of her pillows, buried her face into it and giggled, hoping it would muffle her laughter. Quinn followed the example and buried her face into the same pillow, on the other side and laughed into it.

They eventually regained their composure and they lay on their backs and breathed in hard, trying to catch their breaths. They lay there for a while in the darkened room, the only light coming in through the window from the moon and streetlights.

Quinn thought about how good her life was, despite the fact that she no longer had parents who loved her. If she’d kept ~~Charlotte~~ the baby, there was no way she could go going to parties at Puck’s house with Rachel and stumbling in just after midnight. It felt like such a shallow reason to be happy for giving up a _baby_ , but Quinn was happy she did. She was glad to be doing normal teenager things, and not worrying about colic (whatever that was) or changing diapers or worrying about not being able to stop a baby from crying or diaper rash or whatever. And it didn’t necessarily matter that she was giving up Charlotte’s first real smile, her first word, her first step, all of which probably had been _amazing_.

She thought about Charlotte, and she thought about Rachel who’d been completely supportive when she made her pro and con list for keeping the baby. She thought about Rachel saying that either way, things would work out, and Quinn should just do what her heart told her was for the best. And she thought about how full her heart felt the day when she was enormously pregnant and Rachel held her hand and said, “look, if you keep the baby, I’ll help you change diapers and babysit sometimes” (when it was obvious that Rachel was willing to do more than ‘sometimes’) and then Rachel said “but if you give the baby up, I’ll take you once you’re ready for sushi since I know you miss it, and we’ll figure out where to go from there, and it’ll all be okay.”

And so in that moment when she was maudlin from memory and alcohol, Quinn felt something inside her slip and shift and before she understood what she was doing, she tossed that pillow aside, scooted closer to Rachel and kissed her.

And Rachel kissed her back. Quinn knew this to be true, despite the fact that her memory of the night was a little clouded due to the fact that it was powered by alcohol.

But then Rachel gasped, and pulled away. She simultaneously reared backward and pushed Quinn away which caused her to fall off her own bed.

Quinn peered over the bed. “Are you okay?” she asked, eyes wide.

“I’m asleep,” Rachel said after a moment’s pause.

“No, you’re not,” Quinn scoffed. “You were just awake.”

(When Quinn thought about this the next morning, she was completely embarrassed that she didn’t realize that Rachel was awake because they were _talking_ )

“Then I’m unconscious.”

“No, you’re not!”

Quinn couldn’t remember what happened after that, and in fact, most of her recollection was sort of foggy, so she wasn’t sure what was real. But the next morning, she woke up in Rachel’s bed, which meant that it couldn’t have _all_ been a dream, and Finn made fun of them for being unable to unlock the door the following Monday, so it couldn’t have all been imagined. And the most important thing that told Quinn it wasn’t a dream was that Rachel was gone the next morning and didn’t come back until late that night (so late that it was technically early the next morning) because she was on a date with “Noah” (who was still Puck as far as Quinn was concerned.) And Rachel was still asleep Sunday morning when Quinn got up to get ready for church, but she was gone by the time Quinn got home. And once again, Rachel was with ‘Noah’ (Puck!).

But by Monday, they got ready for school together, and things seemed okay. Rachel didn’t seem any different, but she didn’t bring up why she’d been so scarce for most of the weekend, and she didn’t bring up their kiss. And Quinn decided it was better just to fall in line and follow suit, because if there was one thing she could excel at, it was just trying to fit in and not stand out when it wasn’t the socially appropriate thing to do.

By Wednesday, they were lying on the ground, listening to one iPod together again and Quinn was just relieved that nothing changed. But then Rachel’s silence on the matter just became sort of unnerving. She’d been willing to just pretend like it never happened, but it _had_ happened, and she kept waiting for Rachel to kick her out, or to make fun of her or _something_ , but it never did. And so Quinn just had to bring it up.

“So nothing has to change?” Quinn asked softly.

“ _Definitely_ not,” Rachel assured.

“Good,” Quinn said.

“Good,” Rachel echoed, with a slight nod.

When Quinn really thought about it, she knew that despite her hopes and dreams and her ambitions, she was ultimately a realist and a pragmatist. Rachel and her fathers were something stable in her world that was otherwise completely chaotic, and she was not about to jeopardize the _one_ place she had to stay by letting a stupid (albeit _amazing_ ) kiss fuck it all up. If she messed it up at Rachel’s, she had nowhere else to go, nowhere else to stay. There was no way she could stay with Finn again, there was _no_ way on God’s green earth she’d stay with Puck and no one else’s parents seemed to want to _touch_ the situation, and Quinn didn’t blame them. She had to make it work at Rachel’s, even if they were sharing a room, which could be pretty narrow and tight sometimes. She didn’t have parents who cared or a sister who would let her crash, so what other choice did she have?

And she sure as _hell_ did not want to think about why she’d kissed Rachel in the first place. And she sure as _hell_ did not want to think about how much she _liked_ the kiss. Or how soft Rachel’s lips were, and they were ridiculously soft. Or how Rachel tasted like a combination between tequila, peaches (which Puck used to mix the drinks), the Hershey’s kiss that Rachel swiped from the Puckerman’s candy dish right before they left and the drag that Rachel had taken from Puck’s cigarette, “just to try this one time” (‘disgusting as I thought,’ Rachel would declare.)

Quinn told herself she needed to shape up, which, she thought probably would have been a handy, self-affirming message to tell herself _before_ she got pregnant.

\--

Rachel Berry was a member of PFLAG as early as she could remember. She could remember mailings from HRC addressed to her fathers from the time she was tall enough to reach the mailbox. She loved her dads and was still obsessed with the idea of starting _some_ kind of Gay-Straight Alliance at her school, and she could even negotiate on the name, but she was still attached to gay-lesb-all because it was more fun to say--gaylesball (although now that Rachel gave it some thought, it also looked like gayle’s ball in a poorly punctuated manner.)

So she was completely freaked out by the fact that she was completely freaked out about kissing Quinn. Although technically, Quinn had kissed her and Rachel just kissed her back. And kissing back was sort of instinctual, right? But still Rachel was completely freaked out that she’d been so disturbed by the kiss, because Quinn was right-- she had freaked out. It bothered her that the kiss bothered her and threw her into a tailspin of self-doubt. And more importantly, she was ashamed of herself for _not_ wanting to be gay because she’d liked the kiss.

As early as she could remember, random people would stop her while she walked with her fathers to give their homophobic opinions. As early as she could remember, people told her fathers that two gay men would only end up raising a little gay kid, and they were evil for even _thinking_ about bringing a kid into the world, let alone actually doing it. It just always seemed important that she not be gay, because everyone seemed to think that two gay men would raise a gay child and she just felt like she needed to prove a point. And the older she got, the more it was clear that she really did like boys. And even her dads seemed relieved by it, and she thought that maybe this one part of her life was going to be easy for her, that this was the one part of her life that wouldn’t have to be such a _struggle_.

And her life was pretty _un_ complicated lately. She had a great relationship with her fathers-- she always had, actually. But with all the success New Directions was having, they finally seemed _truly_ proud of her, and not like they were just putting on a show of it because that was just what parents did. And she was doing really well in school and acing all of her AP classes. She’d passed all her AP exams last year. Glee was finally not the extracurricular club that was lowest on the totem pole after their win at Nationals last year. She had a sort of boyfriend in Noah. Life just seemed under control. And even having Quinn move in and have to share her bedroom wasn’t so bad. After all, Quinn had nowhere else to go and Rachel had to admit it was kind of nice having another person around. Being an only child could get lonely once in a while, so it was nice sometimes to have someone else around. And she and Quinn _had_ to become friends (it was either that or a fight to the death), but once it happened, it was kind of nice. Her life was _finally_ under some semblance of control and then Quinn had to go and kiss her. And now her life felt like it was spinning away from her. She liked Quinn, but she didn’t like feeling this way.

She wasn’t in love with Noah, but she liked him. And their relationship felt _good_ and it was just so _uncomplicated_. They played music together, made out, had sex. And maybe they didn’t talk all hours into the night or study together or share their feelings all the time or anything, but that was okay. Noah was an uncomplicated high school boyfriend that she could leave behind when they graduated without any angst and without any regret. She spent most of middle school and all of high school (thus far anyway) not really wanting to get attached to anyone, because she knew with absolute certainty that she intended to leave right after graduation and she didn’t want any messy attachments or bonds with anyone other than her fathers to make it harder for her to leave. There was her crush on Finn, but she wasn’t looking at him to be a lifelong partner, either. It’s not like she thought she was going to marry him or something. She had an exit strategy out of Lima, and it didn’t involve making friends that she would feel sad about leaving behind. It didn’t involve a boyfriend she was attached to, and it didn’t involve falling for a girl that she was _already_ living with.

“Babe, get up. It’s past your curfew. I need to get you home.”

Rachel cocked open one eye and smiled up at Noah. “I’m already late,” she said with a grin. “So I might as well accept the consequences.”

Noah grinned at her slyly. “How come everyone thinks I’m the bad one, babe?”

“You _are_ the bad one. I just have a healthy opinion on this issue.”

One of her hands reached up to cup the back of his neck and she pulled him closer to kiss him. And he smiled at her and cocked one his eyebrows up to silently ask for her permission. And she gave him a soft smile and it made sense, because this was the way high school, at least her plan for high school was supposed to be.

And for a little while, all she thought about the feel of skin on skin and the touch of his body against hers.

And when she got home, her trusting fathers were already asleep because they trusted her and assumed she would follow the rules of curfew, just like she always did. So she didn’t even have to suffer through the consequences of being a bad daughter.

Quinn, however, was awake and working on a paper on Camus for their English class. Rachel’s paper, of course, had already been completed.

Quinn’s eyes were wide. “I sent you like, fifteen texts! Why are you so late? It’s a _school_ night.”

“I was with Noah,” Rachel said dismissively. “Are you still working on that Camus paper?”

“Cam-who?” Quinn joked.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “For the last time, that is not a funny.”

“You just have no sense of humor.”

“I laughed the first three times you did it,” Rachel pointed out.

Quinn scowled. “It’s late at night and I’ve been writing this paper since I got home from school. Forgive me if I’m not making up material for your approval and amusement.”

“You could have written it sooner,” Rachel said.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Okay, _mommy,_ ” she said, shaking her head. “And anyway. You’re the one who broke curfew again. Your dads are going to find out and they’re going to be pissed if you keep doing this.”

“The last time I broke my curfew, I was with _you_.”

“I hate how you dwell,” Quinn joked.

Rachel snorted. “I’m going to shower, I’ll be back.”

“Okay,” Quinn said.

Rachel left the room to shower and she stood still and let the spray of water run over her. She thought about the way Noah was becoming increasingly gentle and sweet with her. He’d been almost… tender. And it’d been _after_ they had sex, which was unusual for him because he usually only put on a show of tenderness _before_ they did it, and he really didn’t have to, because she really did want it as much as he did.

His sweetness toward her was kind of disturbing and definitely not something she wanted, because the nicer he was to her, the more she liked him and not just as a person. And she sort of hated herself a little bit for being one of those dippy girls who started to fall in love with a boy who was respectful towards her after they just had sex, because that was the way they were _supposed_ to be. She wasn’t supposed to be _happy_ that he was. And she didn’t want that kind of attachment. At least, not to Noah.

“Fuck,” Rachel whispered.

She didn’t realize how long she’d spent in the shower until the water started to turn lukewarm and then cold. She shivered slightly, turned the water off, grabbed a towel to dry off and dried herself off. Within a few minutes, she was dressed in her pajamas.

“You took forever,” Quinn commented. “What were you doing in there?” she teased.

“What?” Rachel asked, blinking.

Quinn looked concerned. “Are you okay? Did something happen with Puck?”

Rachel blushed, despite the fact that she wanted to believe that sex was no big deal, it sort of embarrassed her to talk about, too.

“No,” she said quickly. She moisturized her face and then sat down on the bed. She pulled up her pajamas bottoms until they reached her thighs and she rubbed lotion on her legs. Then she put lotion on her arms.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “You sure? Did you want to talk about something?”

Rachel shook her head. “No,” she said quickly. “How are you doing on that Camus paper?”

“Almost done,” Quinn said with a grin. “I just need to incorporate _The Fall_ into my paper now.”

“You really shouldn’t have put it off until the last minute,” Rachel scolded.

“I work better under pressure.”

“Yeah, well. You’re going to have bags under your eyes tomorrow and I know you _care_ about that.”

“You’re just saying that because you have a hard time falling asleep when there’s light in the room,” Quinn accused.

“Well, who wants to fall asleep like that?” Rachel demanded.

“I don’t mind,” Quinn said. “I never complain when I go to bed before you and you need the light on.”

“That’s because you’re scared of the dark,” Rachel teased.

“I am _not_ scared of the dark!”

“Yeah, sure,” Rachel said, “Says the girl with the Grand Canyon night light.”

“It was a souvenir!”

Rachel laughed. “Hey,” she said, putting her hands up in surrender. “Far be it for me to judge.”

“That’s right,” Quinn huffed. She reached into her book bag which was lying on the floor next to her chair to pull out her copy of _The Fall_ and then realized it wasn’t in there. “Shit!” Quinn exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?” Rachel asked.

“I forgot to bring _The Fall_ ,” she bemoaned. “I brought _The Plague_ instead!”

“Quinn! _The Plague_ is like, twice as big as _The Fall_ how could you do that?”

“I don’t know!” Quinn exclaimed. “Maybe because I was distracted by the primordial dwarf bouncing up and down beside me telling me to hurry up?”

“What primordial dw--” Rachel trailed off. “I’m five feet two!”

“You are not!”

Rachel scowled at her. “That’s what it says on my driver’s license!”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Oh, and people are known to be so truthful on those!”

Rachel made a face. “Do you want to borrow my copy of _The Fall_ or not?” she asked, rolling her eyes.

Quinn brightened. “You have it?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said. She reached for the book on her nightstand and tossed it across the room to Quinn. “I wrote about it in my paper, too.”

Quinn caught the book between both hands and grinned. “What other ones did you choose?”

“Uh, _The Stranger_ and _The Myth of Sisyphus_.”

Quinn’s eyes widened. “So did I! You can’t do that. Baxter’s going to think we cheated!”

“Well, since I’m done with mine, you’ll just have to be the one to change it.”

“But I don’t want to.”

“Well, neither do I. And anyway, it’s not like we’re sharing the same mind or something--.”

“Well, thank God for _that_ ,” Quinn interrupted.

Rachel frowned at her. “So our papers are going to be different. Don’t worry,” she finished.

“I guess,” Quinn grumbled.

“Okay,” Rachel said. “I’m going to go to sleep. Good night.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said. “Good night.”

Quinn continued to flip through Rachel’s book and grinned when she saw some of the passages that Rachel had underlined and then drawn a sad face next to it. It was mortifying how cute she’d been finding Rachel for the past week, it truly was. She listened to Rachel toss and turn in an effort to get comfortable, heave a deep sigh, and shuffled around in her bed for a while. But eventually she heard Rachel’s deep, steady breathing and she knew that Rachel had finally fallen asleep. It was unnerving how comforting she’d found that to be, and not just in the last week.

It was weird because she’d never shared a bedroom before, and while she’d been a Daddy’s girl, she was never the kind of child who asked her parents if she could sleep with them for a night. If she were scared after watching a frightening movie, or if she had a bad dream or she just woke up lonely or bored, she still just stayed in her bed. If she was scared, she just toughed it out because she knew her father would respect that more than if she went whining and crying into their room. And if she woke up lonely or bored, well, she just entertained herself. It was kind of how she found out she could sing. Because even when she was little, and she woke up alone before her parents got up, she would just occupy herself by singing songs to herself. So, she’d grown up not being afraid to be by herself.

But when she found herself 16, pregnant, abandoned by her parents and sister and mostly friendless, she found it terrifying to be so completely alone because she knew then that she’d never really been alone before. And when Rachel’s fathers invited her to move into their home because they’d dealt with rejection before, she hesitantly accepted. Rachel wasn’t particularly thrilled with it, but was not outright hostile, either. And at first she found Rachel’s breathing to be annoying. “Mouth breather” was an insult that hovered dangerously to be hurled. But then it was just comforting, because it was steady and soft and Quinn just knew-- Rachel was _there_. And that was… _good_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Songs referenced: Be My Baby (Ronettes), He Hit Me (The Crystals), I Miss You (Frente)

Rachel knew subtlety was not her strong suit, but she was okay with that, because she planned on being a star and stars didn’t achieve stardom with subtlety, they achieved it with distinction. But she also knew that trying to avoid Quinn as much as possible without rousing the blonde’s suspicions was neither the most subtle nor the most feasible plan she’d ever concocted.

One of her biggest problems was that they just spent a lot of time together-- they went to the same school, they both participated in Glee, and they _lived_ together. On top of living together, they shared a room. It was a fine line between avoiding Quinn in a way that seemed acceptable and normal and avoiding Quinn in a way that seemed obvious and roused suspicion.

She felt like an ass for even wanting to avoid Quinn, but sharing that kiss with Quinn made Rachel feel a lot more uncomfortable than she wanted to admit. And while she told Quinn that nothing had to change, and Rachel didn’t want anything to change, Rachel knew that something had.

And so, Noah was the perfect distraction and excuse. But with Noah, there was an almost constant pressure to be physical, and although Rachel had come to find out that she _really_ liked sex, she didn’t seem to want it or like it as much as Noah did. And he wasn’t much of a talker, not that she wanted to talk to him all that much anyway. But they would just be lying around on his bed and pretty soon his hand would sneak over and grope one of her breasts, which wasn’t such a big deal to her, but it did get on her nerves sometimes.

She did become close to his mother and his little sister, and Mrs. Puckerman just seemed thrilled that Noah was finally dating a Jewish girl. And so there were multiple evenings she spent at the Puckermans, eating dinner there and hanging out and watching television with them. Ono school nights, she and Noah helped his sister with homework while they waited for Mrs. Puckerman to come home. Rachel had to admit seeing the tender way Noah treated his sister made her believe that he would have made a really good father. Noah and Quinn weren’t hostile to one another or anything, but they barely spoke to one another outside Glee events ever since Quinn gave the baby up for adoption.

Mrs. Puckerman was a working single mother, so there were many nights eating TV dinners or take out in front of the television, so it wasn’t all that different from what Rachel’d grown up with. And she had to admit, since she’d never had a mother, having a little bit of maternal affection was nice. But Rachel knew she was only trying to replace her own family with Noah’s.

After a consecutive week of going to Noah’s house after school and coming home just before her 10pm weekday curfew, and then staying out well past her midnight curfew on the weekend, Rachel knew she had to go home and spend some time with her dads before they got suspicious and said something to her. And of course, she needed to spend some time with Quinn before the blonde got suspicious, too.

She decided rather than going to Noah’s after school or going straight home, she’d book some time in the school auditorium. She stayed there until she knew she had to start getting home if she were to beat her fathers home before they got back from work

She beat her fathers home, but Quinn was already home. Just as Rachel was stuck her key in the front door, the door opened.

Rachel gasped and took a few steps back, but relaxed when it was just Brittany and Santana. Quinn was behind them and she’d clearly just walked her friends to the door.

“Rachel!” Brittany exclaimed cheerfully, propelling herself forward to throw herself at Rachel.

“Hey Brittany,” Rachel murmured softly, grinning as Brittany squeezed her.

“Quinn said you’ve been scarce!” Brittany exclaimed.

Rachel broke the hug and gave Brittany a soft smile. “She did, did she?” she asked, because she wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Hey,” Santana greeted.

“Hey,” Rachel returned.

“Wow, you’re actually home,” Quinn drawled.

“We should go,” Santana said, linking arms with Brittany. “See you guys.”

“Bye!” Brittany said with a grin.

“Bye,” Rachel and Quinn echoed.

Santana and Brittany left and Rachel stepped into the house. Quinn shut the door behind them.

“Did you and Puck have a fight or something?” Quinn asked. “You haven’t been home this early in a while.”

Rachel smiled. “Just thought I’d have dinner with you and my dads tonight,” she said.

Quinn smiled back. “Cool.”

Rachel followed Quinn back to their room. Once inside, Rachel dropped her bookbag on the ground and flopped onto her bed. Quinn flopped onto hers. Quinn laid on her stomach and rested her head on her hands and turned her head to the left to she could look at Rachel. Rachel was lying on her side, facing the wall with her back to Quinn.

They stayed that way until Rachel’s father, John, came home with Thai food. And by the time they set up the plates, Rachel’s other father, Daniel, came home. They seemed so happy to have her home for dinner, Rachel immediately felt like an asshole for deliberately staying away.

Her father, John, made a comment about how rare it was to have her at home these days (he was always harder on her than her daddy Daniel) and she saw her daddy discreetly kick her father under the table because of it. Rachel bit her lower lip, feeling chastened, although it was a pretty mild scolding, if it could even be considered a scolding. Rachel knew that meant she was truly feeling guilty for being so scarce for the past week. Quinn caught her eye and gave her an encouraging smile and Rachel couldn’t help but smile back.

They ate dinner and it was the usual talk with her fathers talking idly about their respective days and then asking the girls about their days at school. Once dinner was finished, Quinn and Rachel washed dishes in the kitchen while Rachel’s fathers watched television in the living room.

“Hey, are you really okay?” Quinn asked. “I mean, _did_ you have a fight with Puck or something? You’ve been so quiet since you came home and you’re not, you know, quiet at all.”

Rachel grinned at her. “I know I’m loud.”

“Small and loud,” Quinn agreed. “I can usually hear you coming before I see you.”

Rachel kicked her leg up and so that the sole of her foot lightly kicked Quinn’s butt. “I just know how to make an entrance.” She paused. “And an exit,” she added with a grin.

Quinn kicked back, her foot lightly kicking Rachel’s butt. “Not that I’d know that lately,” she teased. “You keep coming home after I’ve gone to sleep.”

Rachel lowered her head. Maybe Quinn suspected that she was avoiding her after all.

“That is such a typical girl thing to do,” Quinn said. “Disappear once you get a boyfriend.”

Or maybe Quinn didn’t suspect.

Rachel grinned at her. “To be fair, Noah and I have been going out a lot longer than just this past week.”

Quinn grinned back. “It’s kind of nice to have you home.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d like having your own room again.”

“I guess I’ve just grown accustomed to you.”

Rachel laughed and cocked her head to the right to look at Quinn. “I guess I’ve missed you,” she admitted, because she had in actuality, missed Quinn which she didn’t think she would.

She initially viewed Quinn as a necessary intrusion on her world, then she got used to having Quinn around so much, and then finally, it was kind of nice. Her fathers worked a lot when she was a kid, so if she wasn’t be shuffled around in a van pool to a tap dance class, ballet class, singing lesson, piano lesson then she was taking Hebrew lessons at the Jewish Community Center and when she wasn’t doing that, she was sitting in day care. She was in day care a lot longer than she’d care to admit. And after that, it was various after school programs. Her fathers always showed up to her recitals, performances and beauty pageants, though, and it was that devotion that always carried her through. But she’d never had many friends as a child, and so she’d spent most of her childhood feeling a little lonely and she had what seemed like a typical only child experience-- her fathers’ attentions were lavished on her when she had them, but she was alone a lot, too. And having Quinn around, well, she was just less alone.

They finished the last of the dishes and then they went back to their room.

“Hey, I got an A on my Camus paper,” Quinn said with a triumphant grin. “What did _you_ get?”

“I got an A, too,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, but I did mine the night before it was due which makes my A better than yours.”

Rachel rolled her eyes again. “Yes, yes it does,” she agreed, because she was not about to have this argument again.

Quinn looked pleased. “I won,” she declared.

“Yes, you did,” Rachel agreed.

Quinn sat on her bed and reached for her American History notes and grabbed her pencil case for her highlighter. Rachel laid on her stomach as she read through her Math Analysis textbook. She shared this class with Quinn, but Quinn always seemed to grasp math better than she did.

“Darn,” Quinn cursed.

“What?” Rachel asked.

“I guess I need to stop at the student store tomorrow. I need to buy a new…” Quinn fumbled for the word _highlighter_ but found that she was temporarily aphasic, because she couldn’t recall the world. She made an inarticulate “ssswwiiiiiihh” and made a gesture with her hand.

“Oh!” Rachel exclaimed. “I have extra.” Rachel leaned down to pull out her pencil case from her bookbag. “Yellow, green or blue?” she asked.

“Yellow,” Quinn said.

Rachel grinned at her and threw the yellow highlighter across the room. Quinn caught it easily.

Quinn frowned. “Uh, do you find it a little weird that you understood me even though I was, like, basically indecipherable?”

Rachel made a face. “A little,” she admitted. “Maybe we spend too much time together.”

“ _Way_ too much time together,” Quinn agreed.

They went back to their respective studies, when a few minutes into it, Rachel called out “ssswwiiiiiihh” and erupted into giggles.

Quinn giggled. “Ssswwiiiiiihh,” she called back.

Rachel grinned. Maybe all the weirdness was just in her head.

And right before they went to bed that night, Quinn called out “ssswwiiiiiihh” and Rachel obviously had to say it back, and the two erupted into giggles before they eventually fell asleep.

\--

Rachel walked into the bathroom between her fourth period and fifth period class and saw that only one other person was in the bathroom. She could tell by the shoes and the brown pants the other occupant was wearing that it was likely Quinn.

“Ssswwiiiiiihh!” Rachel exclaimed.

There was a slight pause and then a giggle.

“Ssswwiiiiiihh!” Quinn said, still giggling. .

Rachel entered the stall and then there was a flush as Quinn exited. Quinn washed her hands and as she flicked water over the stall at Rachel.

“Hey!” Rachel complained good-naturedly.

Quinn laughed again and waited for Rachel to come out of the stall. Rachel came out and washed her hands.

“So, like, are we going home together today or are you going to Puck’s?” Quinn asked.

Rachel looked apologetic. “Em has a ballet recital, so Noah and I are going to that.”

“Oh,” Quinn said. “Okay.”

They left the bathroom and walked down the hallway together.

“Ssswwiiiiiihh,” Quinn whispered, just as she had to separate from Rachel to get to her class.

“Ssswwiiiiiihh,” Rachel whispered back.

They shared a grin as Quinn veered off to enter her classroom and Rachel kept walking toward hers.

\--

Quinn went home to an empty house, and it struck her that she’d had the same experience countless times when she lived at home with her parents. Her mother was usually out shopping or with her friends, so when she came home, she typically had a few hours alone before her mother came home to start dinner.

At first, it seemed awkward to be home alone without Rachel with her. Quinn tried to go home with Rachel as much as possible, but it was impossible to ensure that every single time. But Rachel’s fathers assured her that it was fine, and Rachel told her it was okay, and the awkwardness dissipated fairly quickly. And with Rachel’s fathers working so much and Rachel dating Puck, Quinn spent a lot of time alone in the Berry house. It was not as awkward as she thought it would be, particularly because Rachel’s fathers made an effort to include her. Her most recent school picture was up on the fireplace mantle next to Rachel’s most recent school picture and there was a photograph of Rachel and Quinn together at Nationals in the hallway. And then there was the picture in the living room from the 17th birthday party they’d thrown for her. She was pretty well integrated into the Berry household, and it felt really good.

But still, she felt a little on edge. Her parents had kicked her out and the rest of her family had rejected her. It wasn’t such a far leap to expect Rachel and her fathers to kick her out, too. She just tried to keep her head down and stay out of trouble as much as possible. She just wanted the living arrangement to sustain her until graduation, because after that, she could possibly go away to college. She’d have to take out a million loans to do it, but it was feasible. She just needed a place to lay her head down at night until she got to that point.

She did her homework and then studied for a couple of hours. She knew she would have to work extra hard academically if she had any hope of any scholarships. Once everything was satisfactorily completed, she grabbed her iPod and got down on the floor to listen to some music.

She thought about how she’d yet to do this with Rachel again and that it’d been two weeks since they’d last done when they used to do this practice at least every other day or so. If she were only confessing to herself, then she could confess that she missed Rachel.

She had her eyes closed as she listened to a song by the Ronettes. Quinn knew it wasn’t hip or cool, but she just really liked music that was written and recorded between the 1950s and 1970s. It was part of the reason she chose “I Say A Little Prayer” when she auditioned for Glee.

 _I’ll make you happy, baby, just wait and see. For every kiss you give me, I’ll give you three_.

Quinn felt her left earbud be gently yanked out. Her eyes opened and she saw Rachel laying down on the floor in their usual position, with the tops of their heads touching. Quinn grinned, but didn’t say anything and Rachel was silent as well.

The song ended and the next song on shuffle came up.

_He hit me, and it felt like a kiss_

“Nix!” Rachel exclaimed.

“Hey! I like this song!”

“You’re the one that gives me lectures for making domestic violence jokes and you like a song that’s actually about domestic violence? And anyway I said nix! So you can’t argue.”

“Fine,” Quinn grumbled, although she really wasn’t all that upset.

_It could rain for a thousand nights or something I don’t know, look to the sun and we’re having fun, beside the river flow_

Quinn closed her eyes as she listened to the song. She heard the song on Rachel’s iPod and asked for the mp3, which Rachel willingly obliged because Rachel loved to whore out her music tastes. But Quinn really loved the song.

They listened to music together until John came home with dinner, per usual. Rachel got up first and held out her hand toward Quinn. Quinn grinned and grasped Rachel’s hand and Rachel hefted her up. Once Quinn stood up, she stumbled forward slightly and caught her balance. And then she realized how close she was to Rachel. She could smell Rachel’s shampoo and conditioner (Garnier) and the perfume on Rachel’s skin (Marc Jacob’s Basil). Quinn gazed intently at Rachel and their difference in height allowed Quinn to dip her head ever so slightly and whether it was impulse, a profound lack of self control or pure instinct, Quinn felt her move her mouth closer to Rachel’s. Rachel released a soft breath and they stared at one another for a moment before Rachel took a step back. “We should go,” she said.

“Yeah.”

Rachel was quiet during dinner, and once the dishes were washed and put away, she quietly asked for permission to see Noah again, despite the fact she’d only seen him a few hours earlier at his sister’s recital. Rachel’s fathers were happy to have Rachel home for dinner and happily gave permission and then Quinn had the room to herself again.

\--

Rachel was scarce again after that. She came home for dinner a few nights of the week, and spent some time with her dads so they really couldn’t complain about all the time she was spending away from home, but for the most part, Quinn spent more time at the Berry house than Rachel did. It was even weirder to Quinn because when they were at school or at Glee, Rachel acted like nothing was wrong, and things were normal, complete with making “ssswwiiiiiihh” sounds, eating lunch, and meeting in between classes together. B ut Quinn was fairly certain that Rachel was just avoiding spending time with her, and that Rachel wasn’t somehow completely enamored with Puck. Although they were _really_ affectionate with one another and it bugged the crap out of her.

Part of it was that Puck never quite forgave her for putting Charlotte up for adoption, but it wasn’t like he would have been able to take her, either. Granted Mrs. Puckerman was way more supportive of Puck than her parents were of her, but a baby would have messed up his plans, too. And as far as Quinn could see, Puck seemed to think his role in the baby’s life was fun daddy-- someone to pick the baby up every other weekend and do something fun or something. She didn’t see him as rushing to volunteer to be a single father. Or whatever. So while he was cordial to her, there was something a little icy there, even when she was at his house for parties. But he was downright disgustingly affectionate with Rachel-- he was always taking her by the hand or by the arm in public. He kissed her in public, he walked her to class and he seemed to really listen when she talked to him. And as far as she could tell, he wasn’t even seeing anyone else anymore.

It went on for about six weeks, with Rachel being very scarce around the house. She’d come home for dinner a few times a week and spend time with her fathers. Puck even came to the house a couple times for dinner, but it was uncomfortable for him and for Quinn, and so that was rare. Then once dinner was over, and the dishes were washed and put away, Rachel would find some excuse to leave the house, whether it was to go back to Puck’s house, an art project with Brittany, study group with someone else or just studying at the library. She’d come home past her curfew, and since her fathers never had a reason to distrust her before, they always just assumed she would come home before her curfew, so they’d go to bed. On the weekends, Rachel was even a rarer sight. She’d often be gone before Quinn was awake and would come home after Quinn was asleep. Or there were nights when she’d come home to find Rachel already in bed. Even when they were at the same party or event, Rachel was always off in some dark corner with Puck. It was pretty gross as far as Quinn was concerned.

And soon there were nights when Rachel didn’t come home at all, which is how otherwise smart kids tend to get caught doing something stupid, and was exactly how Rachel Berry finally got caught by her normally trusting fathers.

Rachel’s father, John, was angrier than Rachel’s daddy, Daniel. Quinn had come to realize that John was the sterner parent. He was the disciplinarian and Quinn was okay with that because he was nowhere near as harsh as her own father, but John and Daniel were all that Rachel knew, so she could see that Rachel was closer to Daniel than she was to John. She could also see that there was definite jealousy between John and Daniel because of it, but she was only privy to it, because they argued about it sometimes when Rachel wasn’t home. They were usually quiet about it, so it wasn’t that uncomfortable, but John was clearly unhappy with all the time Rachel was spending out of the house, whereas Daniel seemed to think it was normal.

When Rachel didn’t come home one night, but was instead caught by her father, John, sneaking in at five thirty am, Quinn was woken up by shouting coming from the living room. Quinn got up to and crept out of the room and hovered at the top of the stairs to peer down at Rachel and her fathers in the living room.

Rachel was seated on the couch, head down, arms crossed in front of her. She was still wearing the skimpy black dress she was wearing when she left the night before, and while she looked beautiful when she’d left the house, now she just looked a little worse for the wear. Her hair wasn’t as perfectly coiffed and her makeup had worn off, and Rachel looked extremely embarrassed.

John was shouting, his typically pale features turning red. Daniel was clearly angry as well, but his anger was less explosive and while his voice was low, it was definitely angry-- Quinn could detect that from a distance.

There were accusations hurled at Rachel about pregnancy and John became convinced she was pregnant and demanded she take a pregnancy test, which seemed to offend Rachel greatly.

“God, I’m not _Quinn_ ,” Rachel snapped. “I’m not pregnant! I was just with my boyfriend!”

It hurt Quinn’s feelings more than it should have, considering the fact that it was true.

“All night!” her fathers snapped back simultaneously.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said, for at least the sixth time in the last twenty minutes. “I really am.”

John bent down so that his face was extremely close to Rachel’s. He stared into her eyes. “Just tell us one thing,” he said, no longer yelling, but still extremely angry. “Was this the first time you did this? Stayed out all night with Noah?”

Quinn held her breath, wondering if Rachel was going to lie or tell the truth.

Rachel was quiet for a long moment before she bit her lip. “No,” she admitted quietly. “It wasn’t.”

Quinn winced in sympathy and went back to their bedroom. She laid on her bed in the dark for a couple of hours until Rachel finally trudged into their bedroom and flopped onto her bed.

“Are you okay?” Quinn whispered after a long, quiet moment.

Rachel didn’t respond.

\--

Rachel was grounded for the next month, which meant she had to come home right after school or Glee practice. Quinn saw more of Rachel during the first week of Rachel’s grounding than nearly all of the previous six weeks combined. Rachel was quiet and subdued. Rachel’s fathers knew better than to forbid Rachel from seeing Puck (didn’t that always just seem to push two people closer together?) but their relationship was forced to be put on the backburner. The forced separation only seemed to bring them close together, however, because during school hours, they always seemed to be together and they always sat together in Glee. They brought their chairs so close together during Glee, that Rachel was practically seated in Puck’s lap.

“Okay,” Quinn said, taking Rachel’s arm as they walked into the house one Friday after school. “You can _not_ be this unhappy just because you can’t see Puck outside of school or Glee for a month,” she declared. “That is just _wrong_. I mean, it’s almost morally wrong.”

Rachel looked sullen. “No, that’s not it,” she said. “I see Noah all the time at school.”

“Then why are you in such a bad mood?”

Rachel bit her lip. “I just feel bad for disappointing my dads,” she admitted. “They’re _really_ angry with me, especially Daddy, and Daddy never gets angry with me.”

“Well, you sort of had it coming,” Quinn said.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I _know_.”

“Come on,” Quinn said. “Let’s order a pizza or something and watch a movie or something.”

“Yeah,” Rachel agreed with a smile. “Okay.”

\--

Rachel was nine years old when the movie _Ice Age_ came out, and she’d _loved_ it and thought it was hilarious. So when she saw it on sale at the supermarket when she was ten, she asked if they could buy it, and her daddy, Daniel, willingly obliged.

Quinn clearly had a similar love for the movie, because when they browsed through the Berry’s movie collection to decide on a movie while they ate pizza, Quinn immediately chose _Ice Age_. Quinn laughed from the moment the movie started.

Hours later, they were stuffed with pizza and were watching _Sabrina_ with Audrey Hepburn when Rachel’s fathers came home together after having their usual Friday date night. They sat down with Rachel and Quinn on the sofa, surrounding Rachel on both sides. John put his arm around Rachel, and their heads came together.

“It’s nice to have my little one back,” he told her softly.

Rachel smiled at him and rested her head on his shoulder, and Daniel smiled and reached across Rachel to touch John’s knee and Quinn felt like an intrusion for a moment until Daniel put his arm around Quinn and brought her in close. And they stayed that way for a while until Quinn woke up on the couch, half-draped on Rachel with a blanket around them. Quinn swallowed hard, uncomfortable by the physical closeness and unsettled by how good it actually felt. Her whole life lately was unsettling when she stopped to think about it, so she tried not to as much as possible.

Rachel’s fathers were nowhere in sight, which meant they’d obviously gone to bed. She squinted at the digital wall clock and saw that it was 2am.

Quinn realized she was still half-draped on Rachel and she swallowed hard when she realized she didn’t actually want to move. She could get away with just pretending that she was still asleep, couldn’t she? But oh, God, she did not want to even begin contemplating what it meant that she wanted to stay in this position. She scrambled away as quickly as she could and moved to the farthest reaches of the couch as she could. Then she roughly dug her left foot into Rachel’s rib cage-- it was more of a kick.

Rachel jolted awake, muttering something about Germany losing, which Quinn found deliriously cute for some reason, because she always thought Rachel would be talking in her sleep about stardom or something.

“What?” Rachel snapped, rubbing her rib cage irritably. “God, are you trying to puncture my lung or something, Quinn?”

“We fell asleep,” Quinn said.

“Well, then go up to our bedroom,” Rachel sniffed. “I’m comfortable here,” she nestled into the couch, burrowing herself in.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Fine, I just thought you’d be more comfortable in your own bed.”

“This is a really comfortable couch,” Rachel said.

Quinn rolled her eyes again. “Okay, see you in the morning.”

Quinn went up to their room and laid in bed for a while. It was weird how she was so accustomed to the sound of Rachel’s breathing that sometimes she had a hard time falling asleep without the sound of it.

“Mouthbreather,” Quinn muttered in a huff, before she turned around, beat her pillow a couple times and tried to fall asleep.

\--

Once Rachel’s grounding was over, Rachel was scarce again, although she was careful to be home before her curfew, so her fathers were satisfied. But they no longer trusted her implicitly and more often than not, waited up until she was home, which they’d never done before. Quinn didn’t want any trouble, so she kept her curfew as much as possible, and the one time she was late because she had a girls’ night with Santana and Brittany, she apologized profusely and Rachel’s fathers were understanding.

Quinn had to admit it was easier having Rachel away so much. She didn’t need to think about what it meant that she was so accustomed to having Rachel around that she actually enjoyed Rachel’s company. She didn’t have to think about what it meant that she knew what Rachel smelled like or that she thought Rachel smelled really nice. She didn’t have to think about what it meant when she occasionally sneaked glimpses of Rachel when she dressed and undressed, and that she wondered how Rachel got the scar on her hip.

Rachel and Puck seemed to genuinely have fallen in love, much to Quinn’s disgust. Puck wasn’t the Lima loser she initially thought he was, but he was nowhere near the good guy she hoped he would be, either. He was shallow. Once she started to get swollen and fat, he barely even looked at her. No one escaped their last month of pregnancy unscathed-- everyone looked _terrible_ during that last month and Quinn was no exception. Puck barely even acknowledged her outside of accompanying her to her doctor’s appointments. He was totally unfaithful-- she could never forgive him for being obsessed with touching her breasts and sexting with Santana when he was babysitting Kendra’s kids with her. She just didn’t see what Rachel saw in him.

He was still the same guy, but he just seemed a little softer, at least when Rachel was around. The school geeks could generally be guaranteed safe passage through the school without fear of being dumped into a garbage bin if Rachel were with Puck, which Rachel generally was. But for the most part, he was still _Puck_ even if Rachel did call him Noah.

But Rachel seemed to care for him, and when he came to pick her up for a date, her eyes seemed to light up and Quinn just didn’t get it.

It was _Puck_.

\--

Despite the fact that Rachel pledged herself not to become too attached to some high school boyfriend that she would cry to leave behind, she found herself becoming attached to Noah anyway. It was a foolish thing to do, considering they were finishing high school soon. But she’d grown attached to him anyway, and it was flat-out ridiculous, because it was the last thing she wanted to do.

And she didn’t get attached to him because she made out with him, or even because she had sex with him. Those things were nice and felt good, and he was good at doing those things, but she didn’t develop feelings for him because of that. He wasn’t particularly attentive to her, but he was learning to be, and she thought that boded well for him as a person. Granted it’d only taken Quinn a week to realize that Rachel hated orange juice with pulp in it, and it’d taken Noah several _months_ , but Rachel figured it was because girls were more thoughtful than boys.

(Once, when Quinn accidentally grabbed orange juice with pulp when grocery shopping with Rachel’s dads, she managed to strain out all the pulp, which caused Rachel to call her a ‘pulprit’, a combination of ‘pulp’and ‘culprit.’ They still joked about it occasionally to this day.)

Noah was a good son to this mother, and a good big brother, which Rachel thought spoke more about him as a person than the bullying façade he put on at school. She suspected that he was probably sexting other girls, but they spent so much time together that he probably wasn’t making out with or having sex with anyone else. It bothered her that the thought of Noah sexting or being physical with another girl didn’t used to bother her, but it bothered her now. It meant she liked him a lot more than for her own comfort.

One weekend, when her fathers were celebrating 20 years together as a couple, they went away together for a couples’ weekend at a Board and Breakfast. They left she and Quinn alone together, provided they promised not to throw any parties. Quinn and Rachel solemnly promised and they each hugged Rachel’s fathers when they left for school that Friday because they wouldn’t see Rachel’s fathers again until Monday evening after work.

That Friday, Rachel didn’t come home after school with Quinn, which wasn’t all that unusual. Quinn caught a movie with Santana and Brittany, who, although they tried to be discreet, were not fooling anyone. They stopped by Mike Chang’s party for a little while, but Brittany was uncomfortable around him since she broke up with him, and he was still broken-hearted, so they left. Quinn didn’t see Rachel anywhere, but she heard Rachel had been drinking a lot and she pulled Finn aside, putting their mutual discomfort around each other behind them for a moment to ask him to keep an eye on Rachel and to not let her drink anymore. He shrugged and said he’d try, but he hadn’t seen Rachel in hours. Still, Quinn could see concern flash in his eyes and when she left with Santana and Brittany, she looked back for him and saw him wandering, calling out for Rachel.

\--

Rachel knew she was just abnormal. What sort of girl became depressed because she liked her boyfriend too much? An abnormal sort of girl, that was who. And what sort of person was depressed for liking her boyfriend too much and simultaneously liked the girl she lived with a little too much? It was ab-fucking-normal and it was ridiculous.

Rachel was tired of thinking about it, and she was tired of obsessing about it. That was one of the OCD traits she had. She just became obsessed with certain thoughts, and even though she knew she should just stop thinking about it, she couldn’t. She wasn’t one of those people who could just put something out of her mind. When she did something wrong, she thought about it over and over again and obsessed about it. When someone said something to her that felt particularly on point, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

But what did help her stop thinking about it was alcohol, and her fathers were out of town which meant she could stay out as late as she wanted and not have to worry about disappointing them _again_. And so she drank the first four drinks Noah mixed for her in quick succession, and when he worriedly suggested she slow down, she started to sneak some of her own when he wasn’t looking.

At one point, she drifted outside just to get some fresh air and she _swore_ she saw Quinn, even though she knew Quinn was with Brittany and Santana at the movies and it was unlikely for Brittany to ever come to Mike’s house, so it was highly unlikely for Quinn to be at Mike’s that night. Rachel wondered if the alcohol was making her hallucinate, or if her mind was just obsessing about Quinn on its own. Either way, she marched straight into the house and accepted a random drink someone shoved in her hand, drank it as quickly as she could and then found Noah again and kissed him.

\--

Quinn woke up because her phone was ringing. She saw that it was Puck and she picked it up in irritation.

“What?” she demanded.

“Open the front door,” Puck said, sounding panicked. “Hurry up. Rach is really drunk and I need to get her inside.”

She put aside her resentment of him. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” she said softly. She got out of bed hurriedly and ran down the stairs to open the door.

Puck was standing there, looking scared and worried. He was holding Rachel in his arms.

“Is she even awake?” Quinn asked alarmed.

“No,” Puck said quietly. He pushed passed her and walked up the stairs and into the bathroom Rachel and Quinn shared. Quinn followed behind him.

Puck set Rachel down near the toilet and grabbed a hand towel and ran it under the sink. He wrung it out.

Quinn approached Rachel hesitantly and touched Rachel’s pale cheek.

“Puck! How could you give her this much to drink! God, what were you trying to do, date rape her?!”

Puck was furious. “She’s my girlfriend, I don’t _need_ to get her drunk for her to have sex with me,” he snapped. “I would never do that!”

“Then why is she so drunk?!” Quinn pushed up one of Rachel’s eyelids.

Rachel made a weak sound that was something between a groan and a sigh and Quinn felt her stomach tighten with fear. Puck looked afraid, but she was scared, too. Rachel did not look good.

“I only gave her a few drinks,” he said defensively. “The rest she got on her own.”

“Oh, yeah, right!” Quinn scoffed. Rachel rarely drank when they went out, and when she did, Rachel generally practiced moderation. The only time she’d ever seen Rachel drunk was just one time when they were together, and even then Rachel didn’t look like this.

“She didn’t drink any more than I did!” Puck defended.

“Oh, yeah! Because Rachel is known for being the heavy drinker you are, you ass! She’s a primordial dwarf and you’re a fucking giant next to her! You did this!”

“I _didn’t_!” he said insistently. He reached Rachel and glared at Quinn. “Could you move?”

Quinn glared at him but moved over. He put the wash cloth to Rachel’s face and wiped at it.

“Did you slip her something?” Quinn demanded. “Because if you did, I swear to God, we need to go to--”

“I didn’t slip her anything!” Puck shouted.

Rachel made a soft groaning sound and Puck’s attention was instantly to her.

“Rach? Babe? Baby?” he asked quietly, but Rachel didn’t respond. When his eyes flickered back to Quinn, he seemed calmer. But he still looked afraid and freaked out. “She’s been throwing up a lot,” he said softly.

Quinn looked at him intently and realized he probably hadn’t been the one to get Rachel so drunk. He looked scared and panicked and he was also very close to tears.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t take her the hospital?” Quinn asked.

Puck looked torn. “Her dads are already really down on us for dating. I don’t want to go if she just had too much to drink”

“I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear that was your excuse when she dies of alcohol poisoning, you ass.”

“She just wanted to come home,” Puck said. “I’ll stay with her, okay? And I’ll take her if anything happens. You can go.”

Quinn was dubious. But she agreed.

For the rest of the night, Quinn occasionally heard the sound of Rachel throwing up and crying and she wondered if maybe Rachel should be in the hospital after all. At some point, she got up to get Rachel another glass of water and went into the bathroom to find Puck holding Rachel in his arms, the two of them sitting on the ground, their backs leaning against the bathtub.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s just sleeping.”

“Are you sure she’s _breathing_?” Quinn snapped.

“ _Yes_ ,” he snapped resentfully.

“Don’t let this happen again.” She set the glass on the sink and went back to the room.

\--

When Rachel woke up, her butt hurt from being on the ground and Noah’s arms were still around her. Her head hurt and she felt her stomach roll. She was glad she was in the bathroom, because she stumbled forward on her hands and knees and vomited into the toilet. Noah was awake instantly and he held her hair back and she threw up. Once her stomach was emptied, she lay down on the floor of the bathroom, her face on the cool tiles. She knew it was highly unsanitary, but she just could not move.

“Baby, do you want me to get you to your room?”

Rachel squeezed her eyes shut. “No,” she said. “Quinn’s sleeping. I don’t want to wake her.” She released a shuddering sigh. “You can go,” she said. “I bet you’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Thanks for staying here.”

He laid down next to her and stroked her hair. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’ll stay.”

The fact that he was so nice to her when she was so disgusting made her feel even worse.

\--

Once Rachel had enough will to take a shower, she did so. Noah went home. And she flopped onto her bed after her shower without putting on any lotions or skincare treatments or even drying her hair, which she knew would only make her wake up with a headache. Quinn brought her a couple glasses of water and a bottle of Gatorade but otherwise left her alone for most of the day. She didn’t recover until nearly three in the afternoon and she hated herself for wasting the entire day.

When she woke up, she still felt a little off-kilter and somewhat nauseous, but she wasn’t sick to her stomach, she wasn’t dizzy and her head did not pound as much as she thought it would. Rachel shuffled down the stairs and into the living room so she could get to the kitchen and found Quinn studying in the living room with the TV on for background noise.

Quinn set her book to the side when she saw Rachel.

“Hey, you’re alive,” the blonde greeted.

“Hi,” Rachel said softly.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said.

“Come on, sit down,” Quinn said. “Tell me what you need, I’ll get it for you.”

“I was just going to get some more water and an Advil.”

“I’ll get it.”

Quinn got up and came back a couple minutes later. She handed Rachel a glass and a couple of pills.

Quinn watched as Rachel swallowed the pills and drank the water quickly.

“Rachel,” Quinn said softly. “Did Puck give you a lot to drink last night? Did he give you something?”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “No, of course not,” she said immediately. “He would never do that.”

Quinn had her doubts, but she supposed she was biased. “Why did you drink so much?” Quinn asked quietly.

Rachel was silent for a long time as she contemplated what her response would be. But it just made her tired. “I don’t know,” she answered, finally, her voice flat.

“Oh,” Quinn said softly.

Rachel hesitated a moment before she spoke again. “Don’t…don’t tell my dads about this, okay? Please, Quinn?”

Quinn gave her a long, silent look. “Then don’t let it happen again. Okay?”

Rachel gave her a wintry smile. “It won’t.”

“Swear?” Quinn asked. She held her pinkie finger on her right hand out.

“Swear,” Rachel said softly. She stuck out her pinkie finger on her left hand and crooked it around Quinn’s proffered pinkie.

“Okay, then,” Quinn said.

\--

Sometime in November during their senior year, when they all started applying for applications for college, Rachel started to become increasingly grim the more time she spent with Noah. His grades weren’t so good, and he kept pressuring her to stay an extra two years while he could get his act together in community college, and they could go off to New York together after that. He told her he’d always wanted to get out of Lima, but had never given college much thought as that means until they started dating, and she kind of believed him, even though she didn’t want to believe him. And the worst thing was that she kind of did want to stay for him, which was exactly the fool, dumb ass thing she never wanted to even _contemplate_. But she wanted to get out of Lima even more, but she’d grown so attached to him in spite of herself that she couldn’t see herself willingly leaving him behind either. And he had his reasons for wanting to stay an extra two years other than just community college, he wanted to get his sister through elementary school and into middle school, he wanted to help his mother out financially.

Noah could be a jerk to the rest of the world, but his family was _everything_ to him ever since his father abandoned the family. And he really did work hard. Maybe not necessarily academically, although he had vastly improved on that, but he had his own business, and he was the kind of son who could be counted on to always do more than his fair share around the house. Rachel admired that and she thought that if they ever did have kids together, no matter what happened between them, at least, those kids would always have a father. Her fathers went through a rough patch when she was eleven, and her father, Daniel, moved out for a year and completely disappeared on her and it’d been so exceedingly _hard_. When he came back, he cried and apologized and said it was just easier not to have her at all than to have too little of her, and she sort of understood, but it took a long time to get over that hurt.

Rachel wasn’t deluding herself into thinking the other Glee kids liked her for herself. She knew they only tolerated her for her talent, and that was okay with her. She wasn’t really attached to anyone. She liked them, and it made her a little sad they didn’t like her, but she didn’t like them enough that it would make her sad to leave them. And she knew she and Quinn were mainly friends because Quinn had no other place to go, so Quinn had to make their living arrangement work. But Noah seemed to just like her even _more_ after spending copious amounts of time together, and she had to admit, she liked that kind of stability and that was going to be hard to leave behind. And maybe if they did stay together and did have kids together, and they eventually split up for whatever reason-- boredom, maturity, resentment, infidelity, whatever, Rachel believed that Noah would stay in those hypothetical kids’ lives, even if he no longer cared for her. It seemed really…stable in its own way, and maybe she wanted that stability more than she wanted stardom and fame, not that she was willing to give up stardom and fame.

It tore at her, it really did. And for whatever reason, Quinn was the convenient target of her ire. Because they lived together, practically on top of each other in a room that wasn’t large enough for two people. And Rachel was tired of being polite and considerate after a lifetime of not having to be polite and considerate in her own damn room. It was the one place she could just be herself after being as polite and nice to the whole fucking world as she could be, a world, by the way, that wasn’t as nice to her as she tried to be to it. And she was tired of the fact that her room no longer smelled like _her_ perfume and _her_ beauty products, that she had to give up half her closet space. She was just tired of all of it, and she knew Quinn was, too.

The fighting was inevitable. They lived in such peace for so long, it was inevitable that they would start fighting. It was a miracle it took over a year after Quinn moved in for the two to start fighting. But then again, when Quinn first moved in, she was still pregnant, and Rachel was trying to be considerate of that.

They started fighting over petty things, which they each knew was ridiculous, and despite the fact that Rachel was hardly even home, they were still spending too much time together.

But the fighting stopped one day when the landline in the Berry house rang. It was unusual for it to ring-- it was usually a telemarketer or someone. They only had the landline for emergencies, since everyone in the house used a cell phone anyway. John answered the phone and listened intently and then grimly called out for Quinn.

Quinn took the phone. She was surprised to hear her paternal grandmother on the other line. She asked about her grandmother’s health, and then she heard the news. Her grandfather was dead. If her father were unforgiving and overbearing, her grandfather was even worse. She was never close to him, but she didn’t want him dead either. She’d only just started to process the fact that her grandfather had died three weeks ago, and no one bothered to tell her or invite her to the funeral even thought it was in the same damn state, albeit 100 miles away in Columbus, when her grandmother dropped the second bombshell.

“You can live with me now.”


	3. Chapter 3

Quinn contemplated her grandmother’s offer, and her grandmother sighed patiently, and Quinn realized that she needed some time to think about it. Her grandmother was passive. It was said that men married their mothers and women married their fathers, and Quinn truly hoped it wasn’t true, but it was true in her father’s case. It was also kind of true in her mother’s case, once she stopped to think about it. She wasn’t planning on making their mistake though.

Her paternal grandparents had cut her off just as much as her parents had-- she’d asked if she could live with them once she had to move out of Finn’s and she had nowhere else to go. But her grandfather had ignored her, and her grandmother did whatever her grandfather told her to do. Now that he was dead, her grandmother could do what she wanted, but Quinn had no idea how her father would feel about her living with his mother. He would probably be pretty unhappy about it, and Quinn didn’t want any trouble.

But things at the Berry house had become increasingly uncomfortable. Rachel’s fathers were still good to her, John was stricter and could occasionally be unreasonable like any parent, but Daniel was always the sweetheart who intervened on her behalf, just like he intervened on Rachel’s.

But she shared a room with Rachel, and she was tired of petty arguments with Rachel, she was tired of Rachel’s grim quietness, the not-so subtle rejection of her and she just wasn’t a big enough person to let it go. She responded with Rachel’s sullen quietness with anger and annoyance and when Rachel responded back in kind, things escalated. And she was also exhausted by the way she seemed to be the convenient target for all of Rachel’s frustrations, whatever they were about. If they didn’t share a room, then the animosity and tension probably would have dissipated within a week or two. They could have gone their separate ways and had some breathing room and headspace and then come together for a meal and a movie and everything could have been okay. But instead it just dragged on and on because they lived in such close quarters.

But once the call announcing her grandfather’s death came, she had Rachel back.

The quiet Rachel who barely said a word to her, the one who always seemed lost in thought but always flatly responded she was okay, that Rachel was gone, at least, for an evening. Instead she had Rachel again, the one who put her arm around her and pulled her in close. The one she joked around with, the one she could communicate almost nonverbally with, the one she “ssswwiiiiiihh”ed with, and good-naturedly fought over the first shower with. The one who was attentive to her, who scampered off to bring her a glass of juice with lots of ice cubes just the way she liked. She had that Rachel back, at least, for now, and it felt nice.

Quinn told Rachel and her fathers about her grandmother’s offer, and all three of them went quiet and exchanged a long, silent look. If Quinn hadn’t been so off kilter, she would have thought it was hilarious how all three of them had the exact same facial expression at the moment.

Finally Daniel spoke. “You need to think about your grandfather first,” he said softly. “You can think about everything else later.”

The four spent some time together and then Quinn stood up from the couch and excused herself to the bedroom she shared with Rachel, and Rachel hesitantly asked if Quinn wanted some company, or if she wanted to be alone. Quinn only thought about it for a moment before she smiled and reached her hand out to Rachel, who took it.

Rachel’s hand was small and warm, almost like a little kid’s. Holding Rachel’s hand, Quinn briefly wondered how the hell Rachel managed to even reach an octave on the piano with fingers that were so small, but Rachel was always surprising her. After all, that amazing singing voice came from such a little body. Rachel laced their fingers together and smiled at her, and in that moment, Quinn once again felt that she had her friend back, not the increasingly distant stranger that had taken Rachel’s place. The stranger that looked, sounded and smelled like Rachel, but didn’t even seem interested in talking to her when they were bored and in the same room.

They walked to Rachel’s room together and Quinn flopped onto Rachel’s bed, because it was closer to the door. Rachel lay down next to her and they lay there in silence for a while.

“Are you okay?” Rachel asked quietly.

Quinn sighed. “Yeah,” she replied. “I wasn’t that close to that grandfather. I mean, even my dad was afraid of him. I just can’t believe even my mom didn’t call me to tell me he died. I mean, who _does_ that. I thought she’d at least call while my dad was at work or something. Or my sister.”

Rachel stroked Quinn’s hair. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “That was incredibly messed up.”

“I mean, my grandmother always did what my grandfather said, so it’s kind of nice that she’s asking me to move in with her now, right?”

Rachel paused. She did not agree. But this was probably not the right time to say what she really thought about Quinn’s family. So she lied. “Uh, yeah. I guess.”

Quinn turned her head to look at Rachel and then rolled onto her side so that they were face to face. She gazed intently at Rachel. “What’s your relationship like with your grandparents?”

“I don’t have a relationship with my grandparents,” Rachel said calmly.

One her of earliest memories was her father John, carrying her in his arms while her other father, Daniel, walked next to them. They drove for what seemed like hours (but Rachel was never sure how long it really was, because kids always felt like everything lasted for hours) and walking up to a big house. She was maybe three at the time, so she probably wasn’t supposed to remember it, because neither of her fathers ever brought it up, but she did remember it. She remembered her father knocking on the door of a big house, and an older woman answering, and then a big man, older, too, coming up behind her. She remembered her father introducing her to them as their granddaughter, and she remembered them denying that she was because he wasn’t her son. Two years later, this scene was repeated with her other father, Daniel’s parents and the memory was even more clear in her mind. But she never brought it up, and she never asked about grandparents because she already had her answer. Her fathers never talked about them either. So she had nothing to relate to when it came to grandparents.

“Oh,” Quinn said softly. “Sorry.”

“What was your relationship like with your grandfather?”

Quinn shrugged. “Not much. I’d really only see him on the holidays. He didn’t talk much. He seemed mad a lot.”

“Oh.”

“It just would have been nice to have been told he was dead,” Quinn said. “Or to have been invited to the funeral or something. I mean, I’m obviously not considered a member of the family anymore.”

Rachel scooted in closer and wrapped her arms around Quinn and pulled the blonde in close. Quinn responded by putting her arms around Rachel and burying her face into Rachel’s shoulder. Rachel’s body was small and warm. Her body was thin and her arms were soft. Quinn was accustomed to hugging boys this fiercely-- boys who were tall and muscled from football and other sports and chores around the house like shoveling snow. Rachel was different. She was small and felt almost frail in her arms. But Rachel’s body felt comfortable to lean into this way, and Quinn felt comforted.

Rachel’s neck was soft, warm and smelled good. Quinn didn’t cry, but she kept her face buried in Rachel’s neck and thought about how much her life had changed, and if she could fall any further and farther than she already had. She wanted her old life again. She wanted her old, predicable life with her dopey, but sweet boyfriend whom she could tantalize and tempt but never fulfill. She wanted her daddy and mom again, the ones who saw her as the golden child, the doted upon younger daughter, not the slut that brought shame on their family. She wanted to stop worrying about how she would ever pay for college-- she missed a time when she could just take it for granted that her daddy would foot the bills and give her a large, generous monthly allowance to boot. She missed a time when she didn’t have to worry about getting kicked out of where she was living.

Her life had long ago left Normal and entered the Twilight Zone and she just wanted out of the Twilight Zone and back into Normal. But leaving the Twilight Zone and trying to sneak back into Normal was the last thing on her mind when Quinn pulled her head away from Rachel’s neck and kissed Rachel.

Their lips touched and Quinn’s tongue hesitantly slipped out to run across Rachel’s lower lip. Rachel’s lips parted and that was enough validation for Quinn to deepen the kiss.

They kissed for a few minutes until Rachel pulled away, out of breath. Rachel released a ragged sigh and she pulled back to stare at Quinn, large dark eyes boring deeply into Quinn’s.

“Don’t freak out on me,” Quinn whispered. “I really couldn’t take it if you freaked out on me right now,” Quinn said.

Rachel gave her a tremulous smile and her right hand reached for one of Quinn’s hands. Quinn felt Rachel’s hand shake slightly and Rachel looked every bit as afraid and unsettled as Quinn felt.

“It’s okay,” Rachel whispered softly and she squeezed Quinn’s hand. “You were just sad.”

Quinn swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah,” she said. She squeezed Rachel’s hand back. “And you were just here for me,” she said quietly. “And I really needed a friend.”

“Yeah,” Rachel said.

“And anyway, you’re with Puck,” Quinn said. “He’s your boyfriend.”

Rachel’s face flushed guiltily. She’d forgotten about him, but now she felt ashamed.

“Yeah,” Rachel whispered.

“We were both really drunk that first time, this doesn’t mean anything,” Quinn said. “Even if it’s happening again.”

“I know,” Rachel said quietly. She stared at Quinn’s lips and swallowed hard. She tugged her hand away from Quinn’s. It was her right hand and her dominant one, so she tended to use it reflexively. She ran her right thumb across Quinn’s lower lip. “Are you okay?” she asked softly. “I mean, that this happened again.”

Quinn swallowed hard and she suppressed the urge to suck Rachel’s thumb into her mouth or to lick her tongue across it. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “Just…just don’t freak out on me. Okay? I’m serious. I really couldn’t take it if you freaked out on me right now. You can freak out tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Rachel said. She bit her lip. “If you’re okay, then…I’m…I’m going to get up and use the bathroom, okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“Okay, then,” Rachel said. She pulled away and sat up. “I’ll be right back,” Rachel said, giving Quinn a reassuring smile. She fled to the bathroom and Quinn watched her leave.

Rachel didn’t have to actually use the bathroom, but she castigated herself as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She took a few deep breaths and threw some water on her face and then left the bathroom.

Quinn had sat up as soon as Rachel sat up to use the bathroom and she’d sat on Rachel’s bed for a few moments, her arms wrapped around herself and staring at the floor. She couldn’t take it if Rachel freaked out, because she was seconds away from freaking out herself. She heard the water run, but she didn’t hear a toilet flush, and Quinn scrambled up and ran to her own bed, jumping onto it just as Rachel came back into the room.

“Rach?” Quinn asked softly.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? I know this is your room, but I’d really just like some time alone to think. Do you mind or--”

“It’s your room, too,” Rachel said quietly. “I’m…I’m going over to Noah’s. Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Quinn said.

Rachel left and Quinn saw the unmistakable look of relief on Rachel’s face when the brunette left. And Quinn had to admit, she was relieved, too.

Quinn swallowed hard. She couldn’t live like this for the rest of her senior year. Living with her grandmother meant that she’d have to change schools and leave everyone behind-- leave Glee, leave Rachel’s amazing fathers who considered her another daughter, but Quinn thought it was for the best. Rachel was completely freaked out, she was completely freaked out, and their fragile current peace would only last for so long.

Rachel’s room was never meant to be shared, and she _should_ be with family. Whatever anger her father threw at her over living with his mother, she could handle, and maybe if she lived with her grandmother, her father would eventually forgive her enough to let her be a member of the family again.

She called her grandmother and agreed to live there. She’d stay in Lima until Winter Break and then move and transfer to a school in Columbus. And Quinn could finally leave the Twilight Zone that had become her life and go back to Normal.

When she told Rachel her decision, Quinn was secretly stung by how relieved Rachel looked, even though Rachel asked her three times if she was sure.

“Sure I’m sure,” Quinn said.

Rachel hugged her. “If that’s what you want.”

\--

They won Sectionals that year, but they’d reliably won Sectionals since the first year of Glee, so the win wasn’t unanticipated. It was bittersweet because it was going to be Quinn’s last performance with the team, but no one had to worry about not having enough people anymore, because more people joined the team since their first year of Glee after they won Nationals with just the twelve of them. Still, Quinn knew it was going to be the last time they were all together, and even though new people came to join, her heart always thought of each Glee win as being with the original twelve members, the ones who made it possible for New Directions to even compete. After their win, Rachel took her arm and they shared a grin as they walked to Rachel’s fathers who gave them hugs and flowers. Then Rachel left with Puck and Quinn went to celebrate with Brittany and Santana.

The school was mostly deserted on the Monday after school after their win at Sectionals. It was getting close to Winter Break, and most students were just going home after school rather than lingering around. Most of the people around were either Gleeks or jocks who were straggling after their respective practices. Quinn walked to her locker in the mostly empty hallway and started to walk outside when she heard the sound of crying (female), the sound of shouting (male) and then the sound of a locker being punched, followed by more shouting.

Quinn walked softly around the corner toward the fighting couple because she was both nosey and curious. She saw the couple and her eyes widened. She retreated backward, her back slamming against the wall.

It was Puck and Rachel. The girl crying was Rachel and the boy screaming was Puck.

There was another sound of a fist being slammed against a locker and it alarmed Quinn enough that she peeked around the corner to see Rachel trying to reach for Puck’s hand and Puck yanking it away from her. Rachel looked unharmed, just upset, and Quinn was relieved. She didn’t think Puck was capable of hitting a girl, but she never thought he was capable of yelling at Rachel like that either. She’d never seen either of them so upset.

“Just, just calm down,” Rachel pleaded.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” he shouted. “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down!”

Rachel had never cried that way in front of her, and Puck had certainly never raised his voice to her that way either. Quinn almost didn’t recognize them. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it was them. Puck was the kind of guy who got into fights, to be sure, but he wasn’t much of a yeller. But he was _screaming_ at Rachel, and Quinn knew there was no one else around, because if there _were_ , someone would have checked on them by now.

Rachel repeated that she was sorry, and whatever she did, Rachel sounded truly sorry. Quinn knew that whatever Rachel did, she would have forgiven Rachel if she sounded like that when she apologized, and if she cried the way the brunette was crying now.

“I’m sorry,” Rachel cried.

“Stop saying that!” Puck shouted. “Just tell me why you’re breaking up with me! Give me a fucking reason, Rachel!”

It was quiet, but then Rachel made a sound. It was tiny, but definitely audible, and it scared Quinn enough that she peeked around the corner.

She saw Puck’s hands around Rachel’s wrists, and saw Puck drop his grip around Rachel and step back before he violently kicked the lockers, three or four times.

Rachel looked terrified and only started to cry harder, but she hesitantly approached him and put her hand on his back.

“Stop,” she begged.

He turned to look at Rachel and seemed to get control of himself again.

“Just give me _one_ reason,” he pleaded, his voice soft. “You’re my girlfriend, and everything’s been good between us.”

Rachel burst into fresh tears. “I just can’t do it,” she said. “I can’t!”

“Why not? What changed? We were fine _yesterday_! You told me you loved me! That was _yesterday_! What the fuck changed between yesterday and today, Rachel? It hasn’t even been twenty four hours!”

That seemed to make Rachel cry harder.

“Fuck!” Puck shouted, kicking the locker again.

Every time he did that, Quinn felt herself growing increasingly agitated that the situation would escalate and Puck would do something he’d regret. Again, Quinn didn’t think he was like that, despite the fact her opinion of him was relatively low, but he was upset and Quinn had seen him giving little freshman boys a nosebleed and a busted mouth for the most inoffensive, unintended slights. She’d never seen Puck this upset, not even when she told him she was giving the baby up. Quinn didn’t know why Rachel seemed unable to deescalate the situation, or why Rachel wasn’t just getting the hell out of there, but Rachel was a mystery to her sometimes. If it’d been her, she would have turned around and walked away.

“Just give me _one_ reason,” Puck said, and he wasn’t shouting, but he wasn’t calm either.

Rachel said something, but it was so soft, Quinn couldn’t hear.

Puck slammed his fist into the locker again, and Quinn cringed, so she could only imagine how Rachel was feeling. She started to recognize the difference in sound the locker made when Puck kicked it and when he punched it.

“Just fucking talk to me!” Puck shouted. “All you’re doing is crying and telling me you’re sorry! Give me a reason!”

Puck slammed his fist into the locker again and Rachel’s crying became louder.

Quinn couldn’t take it anymore. She rounded the corner.

“Rachel?”

Rachel and Puck turned to look at her, and they were both messes. Rachel was crying, and it wasn’t dignified or pretty. Puck looked angry, and looked dangerously close to losing self-control, but he looked pretty close to tears himself.

“Quinn.”

“Rachel, maybe you should come with me and cool off,” Quinn said.

“No, I should stay with Noah and--”

Puck slammed his fist on the locker again and Quinn watched as Rachel winced and jumped slightly.

“Stop doing that,” she told him quietly, trying to reach for his hand again, but once again, he pulled it away from her. “ _Please_ stop doing that.”

“Stop telling me not to do that,” he snapped at her. “What do you even care?”

“We could go somewhere,” she said softly. “We can talk or--”

“You aren’t talking to me,” he said, his tone vicious but his voice low. “You aren’t telling me _anything_. Just go with her, okay? Just go.”

“But--”

“Just _go_ ,” he said wearily.

“But--”

“ _Go_.”

Rachel swallowed hard and nodded and she kept her head down while she walked toward Quinn. They walked away quickly from Puck. Quinn turned around to look at him, wondering if he’d become agitated, change his mind and follow them, but he was still standing at the lockers, his forehead pressed into one of them.

“Let’s go home,” Quinn said quietly.

Rachel wiped at her eyes, but she wasn’t crying anymore. It was a little surprising to see how quickly Rachel could compose herself when she had to. “I can’t,” she said, her voice coming out a little hoarse. “Daddy took a mental health day today, remember? So he’s home.”

“Oh yeah,” Quinn said. “Crap,” she cursed softly.

Rachel gave her a bright smile, although it was clearly false. “You can go home though,” she said. “I’ll be home later, okay?” She started to walk away, but Quinn stopped her.

“No,” she said quietly. “It’s not okay.” Rachel was smart and generally sensible, but since she’d started dating Puck, she’d changed. She was still smart and generally sensible, but she was doing things that were stupid. Quinn wasn’t going to risk Rachel doing something stupid right now. She linked arms with Rachel. “We don’t have much time together as roommates,” she said. “Come on, let’s go do something. I’ll keep you company.”

It was low, but Quinn knew how to be manipulative when it counted.

Rachel’s smiled wavered for a moment, but she nodded. “Okay. Okay, you’re right, We should spend time together before you leave. Just let me just clean up in the bathroom, okay?”

“Okay.”

\--

Rachel was quiet as they walked through their town together. They got coffee. Rachel was more just sort of holding her cup as they walked, rather than drinking from it and when Quinn tossed her empty cup into the trashcan, Rachel did the same. Except Rachel’s cup made a heavy clang as it hit the trashcan, which meant the contents had been full at the time. They’d walked around for an hour, mainly window shopping, and Rachel had been quiet the entire time. The only words she uttered were at the coffee shop where they ordered vanilla lattes.

“Did Puck hurt you? I mean, like, physically,” Quinn clarified. Rachel looked all right, but who knew. It’d been something that had been plaguing her the entire time they drove into town and throughout this little excursion.

“Of course not,” Rachel said, her voice rough and her tone gruff. “He would never do that.”

“You always seem to be saying things like that about him,” Quinn noted.

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your point?”

Quinn shrugged. “You just defend him a lot.”

There were boys like Finn-- sweet, dependable, dopey and loving. The ones who wanted sex, but didn’t pressure you _too_ much about it, and certainly didn’t ply you with alcohol to lower your inhibitions. And then there were boys like Puck, who were _not_ sweet and dependable. Girls didn’t have to defend dating a boy like Finn, but they did have to occasionally defend dating a guy like Puck.

Rachel didn’t respond and so Quinn spoke again.

“You broke up with him,” she stated. She wasn’t going to put on the pretense that she didn’t know why Puck and Rachel were fighting.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Rachel looked despondent, but she didn’t respond.

“Rachel?”

Rachel gave her a small smile. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m still going to see him around school.” She looked suddenly sad. “But you’re going away.”

Quinn felt suddenly sad, too. She’d almost forgotten about that, even though it was kind of how she’d managed to get Rachel to leave campus with her. “Yeah,” she said softly.

One of the first things Rachel asked her once Quinn told her that she’d accepted her grandmother’s offer was “is your grandma nice?” And the truth was, she was pretty nice. But Quinn had no idea how it was going to work out.

All she knew was that she needed something normal again, and living with Rachel and her gay dads wasn’t a part of normal. It wasn’t normal to want to spend so much time with Rachel who was beautiful, but still often dressed like she’d robbed The Children’s Place store and bought the rest of her wardrobe from the cast of _The Golden Girls_. It was not normal that she sometimes spritzed herself with Rachel’s perfume when Rachel was gone because she missed the brunette. It was not normal they could communicate nonverbally because they knew each other so well. It was not normal she missed the days when they would listen to one iPod together, lying on the ground, head to head. It was not normal that the day they devised their very complicated six nix system for listening to one iPod together counted as one of the most fun days of her life-- and she’d spent it trying to pull away a clipboard from Rachel as the brunette wrote down the rules.

She wanted normal back, even if she had to leave everything she knew behind to get it.

The subject of Puck was cast aside and they kept walking around, going into a few shops here and there. Rachel was still quiet, but she seemed to be making more of an effort to be companionable.

Quinn heard Rachel release a soft breath and then Rachel tugged on her arm, hard.

“Rachel, what the hell?”

“Let’s go in here,” Rachel said, pointing to a shop. “Come on.”

Rachel’s voice was higher than usual and she sounded a little panicked.

“The Children’s Place?” Quinn scoffed. “I know you’re short and you dress like you shop here anyway, but I don’t think you’re going to find updates to your wardrobe here.”

“Let’s go in, let’s go in,” Rachel said, pulling her frantically toward the door and into the store. Rachel was freakishly strong and Quinn dug her heels in. “Come _on_. Come on, Quinn. Let’s go in. This one. Right now. I really want to go in.”

“Rachel, I am _not_ going in here.”

Anytime she passed the store, Quinn thought about Charlotte, and what her baby would look like now. She wondered how big she was, what clothes she liked to wear, what clothes she fit into. She did _not_ want to go into that store.

Quinn yanked Rachel back and faced forward so she could keep walking. And then she saw what Rachel had tried so desperately to prevent her from seeing.

Her parents. Her parents, walking toward them.

“Fuck,” Rachel whispered quietly, her eyes shutting. She pressed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and her index finger.

Her parents walked toward them on Main Avenue, staring straight ahead. Quinn stared at them, hopefully, but they passed her without even glancing at her, without even a flicker of acknowledgment.

She could have been a stranger, or a wall.

“They just pretended they didn’t know who I am,” Quinn whispered quietly.

“Quinn,” Rachel said softly, putting an arm around her friend and trying to lead her away so they could get back into the car. “Come on, it’s going to be okay. Let’s just go home. We can--”

“It’s _not_ going to be okay,” Quinn snapped, moving away from Rachel. “My parents just acted like I was a total stranger. What part of that makes you think it’s going to be okay?”

Rachel reached for her. “Let’s just go home,” she said quietly. “Come on,” she said, hesitantly putting her hand on Quinn’s shoulder.

“Your house isn’t _my_ home,” Quinn snarled. She started to walk away when Rachel reached for her arm.

“Quinn--”

Quinn shoved Rachel as violently as she could. The brunette stumbled and her balance was only caught when her back slammed against a wall. Quinn’s eyes widened. She swallowed hard. She’d been upset, but she hadn’t meant to do _that_.

Rachel’s eyes were wide, but she hesitantly took a few steps forward and linked arms with Quinn. “Come on,” she said quietly, acting as if nothing happened. “Let’s just go home, okay?”

Quinn swallowed hard. “Okay,” Quinn said softly. She was too weary to argue.

They walked back to the car. It was parked pretty far away, at least, from their starting point and they were quiet as they walked.

“Are you hungry?” Rachel asked. “Do you want to get something to eat before we go home?”

Quinn shook her head. “No.”

“Okay.”

They drove home and they walked into their bedroom. Quinn walked to her bed and just dropped into it, her face pressed into a pillow.

It shouldn’t have surprised her, but it still stung. And it hurt that even her mother, who was softer than her father hadn’t even cast a side-long glance. No flicker of emotion, or anything. She was no longer their daughter. She still thought about them as her parents, missed them, wanted them in her life. But they no longer viewed her as a daughter. She wasn’t even sure if they looked at her as a human being. God, how was she going to make it work with her grandmother? When her father drove 100 miles to pick her grandmother up for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, would she have to stay in Columbus, or would she be invited? Would her father convince his mother to kick her out, too? Quinn knew without a doubt her grandmother would acquiesce if he did-- that was just her grandmother’s way.

She had no one. No parents, no grandparents, no sister. She had _no_ family. How did this happen to her? How did one moment of weakness when she was sixteen years old, when she felt fat and unattractive and unlovable because her boyfriend only seemed to have eyes for Rachel Berry turn into alcohol fueled mistake that ruined her entire life? She gave in _once_ and she was marooned forever. How was that _fair_?

“Quinn,” Rachel said, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry that happened.”

Quinn bit down on her trembling lower lip and it took her a moment to get enough composure to respond without her voice wavering. “I’m sorry I pushed you. Are you okay?” She’d already alienated her family, she didn’t want to alienate Rachel, too.

“Please,” Rachel said dismissively. “That was nothing. Are _you_ okay?”

Quinn sniffled. She looked at Rachel. “Yeah,” she said, trying to toughen up “It’s nothing unexpected from them. I just didn’t expect to see them today. Are _you_ okay?” she asked. “I mean, you and Puck broke up today.”

Rachel had forgotten her misery over Noah and she found she felt less sorry for herself. “Yeah,” she said, stroking Quinn’s hair. “I’m going to get you some water, okay? Do you want anything?”

Quinn gave her a lopsided smile. “Got anything harder than water?”

“We have some orange juice.”

“I was thinking vodka.”

Rachel gave her a tight smile. “I have Noah’s flask in my underwear drawer,” she said. “It has some vodka in it. I was supposed to give it back to him today, but I forgot.”

“It’ll do.”

“I’ll bring you some orange juice.”

Rachel was glad that the flask was mostly empty since Noah had drank most of it when they went out the previous night. At most, Quinn was going to get two drinks out of it, and neither of them would be strong, which would possibly add up to one strong drink.

Rachel came back with a glass of orange juice for Quinn and some water for herself.

“Here,” Rachel said, passing Quinn the glass. Quinn was holding the silver flask with Noah’s initials engraved on the bottom.

“Thanks,” Quinn said.

Quinn dumped the contents of the flask into the glass and drank everything at once, chugging the liquid.

“I guess I should be glad we don’t have more.”

“My dads have some, but they’ve been keeping an eye on it more since I started dating Noah.”

But it didn’t matter, because Rachel’s father, Daniel was home. And John would be home soon, too. Both Quinn and Rachel were secretly a little glad that this was the case.

“Yeah,” Quinn agreed. She paused and felt her voice break a little. “Sometimes I miss having parents who actually still care about what happens to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel whispered.

Quinn wiped at her eyes and passed the empty flask to Rachel. She was starting to get a not-quite buzz from the alcohol. It wasn’t as satisfying as a buzz, but at least she didn’t feel as bad as she did just moments before. “I guess it’s a good thing that thing is empty. I’m not sure I have the self-control to stop if I started drinking more now.”

Rachel smiled sadly. “Hey, you don’t want to do that thing I did that one time.”

Quinn winced a little at the memory. “That was scary.”

“Besides, your parents aren’t worth the hangover,” Rachel said.

“Sorry,” Quinn said. “Did you want some?” she asked, pointing to the flask. “I mean, you did break up with your boyfriend.”

Rachel shook her head. “I decided to make it a policy not to drink when I’m upset,” she said, thinking about what happened the last time she did.

“Probably a smart thing,” Quinn commented. She sighed and flopped onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “What a day,” she sighed, trying to give at least the façade that she had her emotions under control, but she definitely did not.

Rachel stroked Quinn’s hair and lightly massaged the blonde’s scalp. “Yeah, no kidding.”

\--  
“I thought they’d eventually forgive me,” Quinn said quietly, after it’d been silent between them for two hours. They just lay together in Quinn’s bed, squeezed in close, spending the time in silence.

John had come home, and they called up to the girls for dinner, but Quinn and Rachel simultaneously lied that they’d already eaten before coming home. They shared a small smile. Even their parental lies were synchronized.

“I know,” Rachel said softly. She curled a lock of Quinn’s hair around her index finger and then watched it unfurl. “It would have been the right thing to do.”

“I really thought this was going to be temporary,” Quinn said in her stark whisper, her eyes gazing up at the ceiling. “You. Me. Sharing a room. I thought maybe after the baby, they’d let me come back. And I’m not stupid. I know I did something wrong, and I wasn’t expecting them to be happy about it. I thought I’d just be grounded forever or something. I didn’t think they’d just throw me out and decide I wasn’t a part of the family anymore. I thought, like, eventually, I could come home. But they didn’t even _look_ at me today.”

“You’re too good for them anyway,” Rachel said, feeling utterly helpless to comfort Quinn, because she knew it didn’t matter that it was true Quinn was too good for those people. Those were still Quinn’s parents, and Quinn was the one who was rejected.

Rachel had grown up her entire life with people like the Fabrays judging her and her fathers, and despite the fact her fathers always told her and taught her to be proud of herself and her family, she’d seen shame in their eyes countless times when she wasn’t invited to birthday parties because people thought gay was contagious. She’d seen the look of sadness when other children’s parents wouldn’t let their kids come to her house because they thought all gay men where pedophiles. She’d grown up her entire life with people like the Fabrays who eyed her fathers with suspicion, and looked at her with disgust and disdain, like she didn’t even have the right to be alive, let alone breathing in the same air they did. It was people like the Fabrays who called children’s services constantly on her fathers when she was little, it was people like the Fabrays who wouldn’t let their daughters play with her when she was little because she was going to grow up to be gay anyway. It was people like the Fabrays who made early morning mean phone calls to her fathers. .

And she _knew_ people like that weren’t worth it. She _really_ did. But she couldn’t quite escape feeling like they did, so she had no idea how to comfort Quinn. Quinn’s parents _weren’t_ worth it, but because they were her parents, they inherently meant _something_. Their opinion just carried intrinsic value, and that sucked.

“When I have another baby, you know, when I’m married to a guy and we plan out when we’re going to have kids, and we both have good jobs and we’re _ready_ , I am _never_ going to do this to my kids. It doesn’t matter _what_ they do. I would never do this to them,” Quinn swore.

“Then you’re already a better parent than your own parents,” Rachel said quietly. She hesitantly stroked Quinn’s cheek. “When you make it, you won’t have anyone to thank but yourself. And you’re going to be the one that makes it on your own. You don’t need your parents to make it, Quinn.”

“Yeah, but they’re still my parents,” Quinn said quietly.

“I know,” Rachel whispered.

They were quiet again for a long time and then Quinn scooted closer to Rachel, staring at Rachel’s face intently.

“Will you tell me why you broke up with Puck?” Quinn asked hesitantly. “You seemed so happy with him.”

When Rachel had a crush on Finn, she thought having a boyfriend might be fun. When she started dating Noah, having a boyfriend _was_ fun, but it didn’t stay as fun as she wanted it to be. The more time they spent together, the more they did become intimate and while she didn’t fall in love with him, she did love him. She was attached to Noah in a way that made her rethink her entire future, and it was just unacceptable. She was not that girl that passed on her Julliard audition for her boyfriend. She wouldn’t allow herself to be.

In the Rachel Berry hierarchy of needs, her need to achieve often trumped her need for food, shelter and sleep.

If she were the kind of girl who would be content to pass up getting out of her hometown to stay with her boyfriend, then Rachel thought she could be happy. Some other version of herself in an alternate universe would probably be perfectly content to be with Noah for the rest of their lives in small town Lima, dreams of the big city indefinitely (forever) put on hold in favor of planning the wedding and having the first baby (to be close to family). And then little things would come up to keep them in Lima rather than casting out into the world, things like the built-in babysitters they had in Lima, and then the fact that the kids were in school and would miss their friends. All those things bit and little that kept people who wanted to flee their hometown, in their hometown. Alternate Universe Rachel and Noah would probably be perfectly happy to stay in Lima

Rachel desperately wished she was that girl. She wished she was the girl that could just stay and be happy with her boyfriend who would eventually become her husband.

But she wasn’t that girl.

She was the girl that wanted out of Lima, who _had_ to get out of Lima. But unfortunately, she wasn’t the tough-hearted girl that could sleep with her boyfriend right up until the morning she got the hell out of town and just leave her boyfriend behind without a second glance, either. She loved Noah too much for that. She didn’t love him enough to want to stay for him, and she didn’t love him enough to want to try something long-distance, but she loved him too much to keep stringing him along.

And she knew herself-- she was dangerously close to being the kind of girl who would stay in town with her boyfriend, just to see where it would lead. But she wouldn’t have been happy about it. She would have resented it for it. She wasn’t the girl that could accept that fate happily. She wanted out, and she wanted out as soon as possible.

But the more time they spent together, the more attached she got to him and the harder it would be to leave him behind. She needed to break it off, so she did.

She never wanted that kind of attachment.

There’d been friendships when she was little, girls who pretended to be her friend, so they could come into her house and spy on her family and report it all back to the other kids at school. And there would always be those whispers, about what freaks the Berry family were, and always, Rachel was just so surprised when it happened. She fell for that trick more than once. More times than she wanted to admit. So many times, she still cringed at the embarrassment of it.

By the time she reached middle school, she’d long learned not to cry about it to her fathers, because they always seemed liked they wanted to cry about it more than she did. She’d long figured out not to trust, like, or love anyone who was from Lima. She’d long resigned herself to being alone while she lived in Lima, and while being alone was okay with her, at least, _temporarily_ , she didn’t intend on making it a lifelong condition, which was why she had to get the _hell_ out of Lima and make some kind of life for herself someplace else.

She didn’t trust anything that came from this town. She just wanted to finish high school, go to Julliard and start a new life where it didn’t matter that her parents were two gay men, or that she was a loser in high school or that she got Slushied practically daily.

When she got out of Lima, she was starting over. She was going to leave everything behind but her name and her fathers, because when she made it, people were going to _regret_ making her fathers feel so bad about exercising their privilege to become parents (she used to view parenthood as a right, but now she viewed it as a privilege) and making her feel vaguely apologetic just for existing.

She was not going to be a Lima loser-- she was going to be the kind of daughter her fathers would want to _boast_ about.

That goal didn’t include crying over a boyfriend who hated her now. And God, she wished she loved him, she really did. It would make things easier in its own way. But she’d spent so much of her life apart from everyone else (some of it self-imposed, and some of it because she was exiled) and she spent so much time just _alone_ (an only child in a dual-income home with parents who worked more than they were at home), that she just couldn’t let herself get close enough to him to fall in love.

And she’d tried. She thought, hell, give it a chance. They could fall in love, and then she could convince him to come with her to New York straight out of high school. If they were in love, then at least there would be something _worth_ leaving his mother and his sister for, right? After all, Noah was planning on leaving Lima anyway, he just wanted to get his family situated a little more. Asking him to leave Lima two years earlier than he planned wouldn’t be such a big sacrifice if they were _in love_.

But they weren’t in love, and Rachel couldn’t do that to him, even though she hadn’t even been accepted to Julliard yet. It didn’t matter what happened with Julliard, Rachel was still planning on leaving Lima as quickly as she could after graduation.

She couldn’t fall in love with him no matter how many times she kissed him or slept with him. And she’d done it a lot. She couldn’t fall in love with him over romantic dinners, or lunches, or clandestine encounters at school or evenings with his family. It didn’t matter that he bought her flowers, candy, underwear and lingerie with his hard-earned money. It didn’t matter that he wrote her songs and made her mix CDs. It didn’t matter when she made him sit through watching _Hair_ on DVD at least sixteen times, and he never complained (or at least he stopped complaining). It didn’t matter that she tried to bake him brownies and used too much oil because she didn’t have a measuring instrument and it came out really _wrong_ , but he ate it anyway (with multiple glasses of milk). She just couldn’t fall in love with him.

And the truth she’d come to realize and fear was that she spent so much time alone, spent so much time protecting herself from the rest of the world, she wasn’t sure she was capable of falling in love. And she spent her entire life as the spoiled only daughter, and she was spoiled, obnoxious, self-centered, and all she ever truly cared about was herself, her talent and getting out of Lima. Maybe all that concern only with herself meant something vital failed to develop inside of her which rendered her incapable of really loving another person enough to fall in love with them.

It wasn’t so far-fetched now that Rachel thought about it. She did mean-spirited, self-serving things all the time, like getting Sandy Ryerson fired or telling Finn who the father of Quinn’s baby really was. She spent a lot of time alone and she spent a lot of time just thinking about herself, so maybe something critical had failed to develop inside her. She was lacking _something_ , because she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t fall in love with Noah, and she wasn’t sure she was built to do it. And that scared her, because she really did want to fall in love one day. Just not with anyone right now.

But she really did want it _someday_ and she just wasn’t sure it would happen.

“Rachel?”

Quinn’s voice interrupted Rachel’s thoughts.

“What?” Rachel whispered.

Quinn’s hand brushed up to wipe at the tears that had slipped past Rachel’s lashes. “You’re crying,” Quinn said softly “I didn’t mean to upset you about breaking up with Puck.”

Rachel swallowed hard as she remembered Quinn’s question-- _‘Will you tell me why you broke up with Puck?’_. She didn’t want to talk about it. It was no one’s business but her own (well, and anyone who had the misfortune of falling in love with her, she supposed). But Quinn seemed so vulnerable and alone and she’d been through the ringer herself that day. Rachel couldn’t just forget the softly spoken request.

“I just don’t think I’m built for a relationship,” Rachel said quietly. “I wanted to fall in love with him, but I never could. It just wasn’t in me.”

Quinn opened her mouth to protest.

“It just wasn’t in me,” Rachel repeated, putting her fingers over Quinn’s lips to silence any protests before they came.

“That’s crazy,” Quinn breathed, because she would _not_ be cut off or prevented from speaking. “It’s in you!”

Rachel looked bleak and wistful at the same time. “I don’t think it is.”

\--  
Rachel spent so much time thinking about what it would be like when she finally left Lima, that she was unprepared when it looked like Quinn would be the one to leave first. Granted it was only a hundred miles away to her grandmother’s, but still.

She thought she would be glad to have her room to herself, but the prospect just made her feel lonely. She thought she would be glad Quinn was leaving, because whatever confusing awkward emotions were going on between them would dissipate once they had some time apart. But the prospect of Quinn moving a hundred miles away just made her sad.

It was Winter Break, which should have been the cause for celebration, but instead they were just sad. Quinn’s things were all packed up in boxes and Rachel felt so ridiculously forlorn to know that those boxes could be gone by the end of the day.

They ate breakfast together that day, the four of them. Quinn’s phone rang and it was her grandmother calling. Quinn rolled her eyes and apologetically took the call. Her grandmother was probably calling with more rules that Quinn would need to follow if she were to stay in her grandmother’s home.

When Quinn came back, she was upset but tried not to show it. Her grandmother was too predictable, and she didn’t know how she was going to make it in Columbus without any of her friends.

Daddy Daniel was troubled. “Are you sure, Quinn?” he asked, his dark eyes. “We can still unpack. You know you’re welcome here.”

Quinn gave him a sad smile. “She’s family.”

“If there’s one thing Dan and I have learned,” John said hesitantly, putting his hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “It’s that sometimes you have to make your own family.”

Rachel and Quinn had been getting along for the most part leading up to the move. They spent a lot of time together, but Rachel seemed to be pulling away, like she already accepted and dealt with the fact that Quinn was gone. Quinn resented it a little because she’d already dealt with Rachel retreating from her while Rachel dated Puck, so she resented that Rachel would withdraw even further. They may have watched movies together and had a girls’ spa day, but the last week leading up to the move, all she really had was Rachel’s physical presence. Emotionally, Rachel was already gone, and it made their shared room feel lonely and vast.

Quinn knew Rachel would probably be eager and happy to get her own room back. Rachel was probably counting down the hours before she could come back to Lima after dropping her off in Columbus and have her own room again.

“I think it’s for the best,” Quinn said.

John smiled sadly. “If it were up to me, you wouldn’t have a choice, you know.”

He was stricter than Daniel was and had more rigid ideas about who made parenting decisions. It’d been hard for him to accept the choice was Quinn’s.

“Rachel and I are living on top of each other here,” Quinn said. “And I just think maybe I need to be with family, you know? I can have my own room again, Rachel can have hers back, and maybe our lives can be, you know, normal.”

Everyone got quiet after that.

After breakfast, they started to load the boxes into the SUVs, Both of Rachel’s fathers drove SUVs. They would need both trucks to accommodate all of Quinn’s things and Quinn thought about how she’d come to the Berry house with little more than the clothes on her back and was leaving with so much stuff. They really had welcomed her.

Quinn and Rachel were left alone as Rachel’s fathers carried down the first round of boxes.

“I don’t care about my own room, you know,” Rachel said. “Don’t leave if that’s the only reason.”

“It’s not.”

“Oh,” Rachel said. “Well, I just wanted you to know. You don’t have to leave.”

“Then tell me to stay,” Quinn said quietly.

Rachel swallowed hard. “This is what you want. I’m not going to keep you here if what you want is to go..”

Quinn looked away and blinked back tears, unsure what the hell she wanted to hear when she asked Rachel to tell her to stay. But that wasn’t it. She hefted the box she was holding. “I’m going to take this downstairs.”

Rachel watched through her window as Quinn walked out of the house and handed her daddy the box she was carrying. Her daddy took it from Quinn and put it into the SUV and then hugged the blonde.

How was it possible that she had such affectionate fathers and she wasn’t built that way?

Rachel bit her lip and stared as her other dad hugged Quinn as well, and the three stood there in the middle of the street, just hugging each other.

She was going to miss Quinn so much. Rachel watched as her fathers and Quinn broke the hug. Quinn watched Rachel’s fathers pack the van for a few minutes and Rachel watched Quinn.

Rachel bit her lower lip, set down the box she was holding and ran out of her room and took the stairs, two at a time. She ran outside and grabbed Quinn, who looked at her with wide, startled eyes. She pulled Quinn aside.

She stared up at Quinn, feeling their height differences acutely because they were both wearing running sneakers.

“Quinn,” she said softly, trying to blink back tears. “I think…I think you should stay.”

Quinn stared at her for a long moment and then pulled Rachel close into a fierce hug.


	4. Chapter 4

One of the very few regrets Quinn had about staying in Lima rather than moving in with her grandmother was that she had to watch Puck and Rachel cast moon-eyed glances at one another all day long once school resumed. It was pretty gross, and it was even grosser because they never talked to one another, so there was pent up, unreleased energy between the two of them.

If she hadn’t witnessed the argument between them, the one where Puck was actually pretty frightening because he was really large and Rachel was…well, not large, Quinn would have made fun of Rachel for all that tension. She would have teased the brunette “oh, just back together with him and do him on the floor in the practice room already,” or something like that. But because she had seen the way Puck screamed at Rachel and the way Rachel winced every time Puck kicked or punched a locker, she thought it was probably better they weren’t talking. But it was still pretty gross to look at them looking at one another and then looking away and then looking back and then looking away again. It was gross to see the way Rachel gazed at him-- looking so forlorn and sorry.

Sometimes, Quinn thought about what it would be like to live with her grandmother. The rules would probably have been stifling, but maybe she would have had a chance to be a member of her own family again. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad-- her grandmother was a pushover, so Quinn thought even in spite of all the rules her grandmother put down, she could get away with a lot. And maybe if she’d gone to live with her grandmother, her father would have come around. It wasn’t likely, but the possibility was there. But there was also a strong possibility her father would have talked her grandmother into kicking her out, and she wasn’t sure she had the fortitude to beg Rachel’s fathers to let her come back.

So she was glad she stayed because she felt safer at Rachel’s house than she did with her own family. No matter how many times Rachel corrected her and said it was _their_ house, the concept was kind of hard to get used to-- her father’s house had always been “his”, not “theirs” or “ours.” She really couldn’t wrap her mind around how Rachel’s house could be hers, too. But she felt safer with Rachel and her fathers than anywhere else, and so she didn’t regret staying.

But she just thought it would be different. She wasn’t sure how, but she just thought it would be different.

When Rachel tore out of the house like she was Dorothy running away from a tornado, and then grabbed her and pulled her aside, Quinn felt so much anticipation, but of what, she didn’t know. When Rachel told her to stay, Quinn couldn’t help it. She just grabbed the other girl and hugged her and they stayed that way for a long time.

Long enough for Rachel’s fathers to look at each other uncertainly, shrug and then go back into the house to watch TV on the couch until they were certain if they were packing or unpacking.

“Why do you think I should stay?” Quinn whispered, her lips grazing Rachel’s ear. She felt Rachel’s fingers tighten, digging ever so slightly into her back as Rachel held her even tighter. “Give me a reason.”

“I don’t know,” Rachel whispered back. “I just think you should stay.” She sniffled loudly. “I’d like for you to stay. That’s my reason. I don’t have anything else.”

Quinn swallowed hard. “I’d like to stay.”

“Then _stay_ ,” Rachel said quietly. “Don’t go”

So Quinn stayed.

Quinn had no idea why having Rachel tell her to stay changed her mind about everything. When Santana asked her why she changed her mind, Quinn didn’t have a response, and she certainly didn’t want to tell Santana that it was _Rachel_ who made her change her mind. She didn’t want to admit a few sentences strung together (and not uttered particularly gracefully or elegantly) by Rachel Berry made Quinn rethink her entire plan.

But Quinn was happy with her choice, at least when she didn’t stop to really think about what it all meant,

They spent that afternoon unpacking, and Quinn apologized profusely and repeatedly for making them have to move the boxes back up the stairs to the room she shared with Rachel. But neither of Rachel’s fathers seemed to mind. Rachel didn’t, either. Once all the boxes were back in the room, Rachel helped her unpack. Quinn thought Rachel would say more, but she didn’t and Quinn couldn’t quite bring herself to say anything either.

But that night, they ordered Chinese food to be delivered to the home and Quinn sat in the living room with Rachel and her fathers. They shared from the cartons rather than getting plates out and they all sat close together on the couch in one big jumble. Quinn and Rachel sat so close together, Quinn could feel Rachel’s knee brushed up against hers for the entire evening and when they both stuck their chopsticks into a carton of cod fish fillet in black bean sauce, Rachel ducked her head and smiled shyly at her. But instead of looking away like she always seemed to, Rachel kept her eyes on her. Quinn smiled back and only looked away when John asked if neither of them were actually going to eat it, could one of them could please pass the cod his way.

Quinn didn’t know what she thought would change. She just thought something would, but life went on a lot like it had before she thought she was going to leave.

The blonde wondered a few times if maybe Rachel regretted telling her to stay, but every time Quinn wondered, Rachel would touch her hand or hug her and say she was glad Quinn stayed. And Rachel always sounded so sincere, Quinn believed her. It meant a lot to her that Rachel said it.

Once school came back into session, Rachel absences from home became more frequent. Rachel disappeared again, and it was more frustrating this time because Quinn had no idea where Rachel was because she wasn’t with Puck. No one else seemed to know either when she subtly tried to fish for information.

Quinn had to admit she was a little more concerned with _who_ Rachel was with, rather than _where_ Rachel was going. It was confusing because Quinn didn’t like the fact that when she was at home, she wanted Rachel there, too. It was upsetting because Quinn did not want to be upset Rachel wasn’t home. It bothered her because she did not want to be bothered by the fact she had no idea where Rachel was or who she was with. It bothered Quinn she was upset by Rachel’s absence. She was supposed to be upset by Rachel’s _presence_ , not her _absence_. But it upset her even more that sometimes Rachel’s presence made her feel even lonelier than Rachel’s absence because there were so many times when Rachel was in the same room and she wouldn’t talk and barely even seemed like she was there.

Sometimes it was almost a relief not to have Rachel at home because there were times that being in the same room with Rachel when she was quiet and clearly sad but completely uncommunicative was one of the most loneliest experiences Quinn ever had-- even more so when her parents kicked her out and she had nowhere to go. But when Rachel wasn’t home, all Quinn thought about was where Rachel was.

Quinn was almost-- _almost_ glad that nothing really changed between them because she had no idea what she’d do if anything had. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted anything to change, except that the current state of things left her feeling kind of unsatisfied and restless. Everything just seemed to be bubbling under the surface and she just wanted Rachel to say something, anything.

Quinn knew she would never say anything, so she just wished Rachel would say _something_ to ease the tension between them. It wasn’t a bad tension necessarily. They weren’t made or upset with one another. But there was tension there, and Rachel _had_ to feel it. It was driving Quinn crazy and she could never say anything because she was afraid that maybe it was all in her head. Maybe Rachel felt nothing, maybe this was just Rachel being normal and Quinn was the one blowing everything out of proportion thinking tension was there when it wasn’t. There was just no way in hell Quinn could say anything to Rachel-- she wasn’t going to risk the only stable place she had to live just because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. And since she’d already told her grandmother she was going to stay in Lima, it was highly unlikely her grandmother would let her come live in Columbus if things in Lima blew up. Quinn had to make things work out at Rachel’s house and if that meant she had to shut up, keep her head down and tow the proverbial line until she could get to college, she would.

But the tension was wearing her out, and it was made worse by the fact that Quinn _still_ thought it was kind of nice just to have Rachel around.

“Maybe she has a secret boyfriend,” Brittany suggested in response to Quinn’s statement that Rachel spent more time out of the house than inside of it.

“Oh, shut up,” Quinn said crossly.

“Hey!” Santana snapped. “Watch it.”

Quinn watched, but didn’t comment as Brittany grinned brightly at Santana and Santana smiled back.

“Sorry, Brittany,” Quinn said, because Santana was glaring at her and was unlikely to stop doing so until she apologized. “But I don’t think she has a secret boyfriend.”

Well, maybe. But Quinn didn’t think that was it.

“Maybe she’s just trying to give you privacy,” Brittany suggested.

“Rachel isn’t that considerate,” Quinn muttered.

Rachel actually was pretty considerate, but Rachel never seemed that concerned with giving Quinn her privacy before. Well, again, Rachel was pretty considerate about Quinn’s privacy, but not to the point that Rachel would let her have the bedroom all to herself for most of the day. After all, the time for that kind of consideration was right after Quinn moved in and Rachel had no problem hogging the bedroom back then

“Why don’t you just ask her? I bet she’d, like, tell you,” Brittany suggested.

Both Santana and Quinn gave Brittany withering looks.

“Don’t be a spy,” Santana teased. “You’d suck at it.”

Brittany looked at them blankly. “I just think you’re making it hard. I’ll ask Rachel where she goes,” she volunteered.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Oh, and I bet you’re going to tell her, ‘Quinn wants to know where you go after school’ aren’t you?”

“Well, I’m not the one who wants to know,” Brittany said mildly.

“ _Don’t_ ask her.”

“Okay,” Brittany said with an easy smile.  
\--  
Quinn had not been at Faurot Park since she was a small child. She remembered she always wanted to climb on top of the historical cannon sculpture on display there, but her parents told her that she couldn’t play on it because it was art, not a toy. Quinn remembered thinking it seemed sort of ridiculous to have things like that where people normally climbed on things instead of a museum, but she never climbed on top of it, even though other kids did. She was the kind of child who generally listened to her parents and obeyed them, which is why she found her current situation to be utterly ridiculous.

Before she got pregnant, she didn’t _avoid_ parks necessarily, it was just she didn’t have any reason to go. If she needed to go for a run, she could always run around the block or around the track field at school. Her family always watched fireworks on the Fourth of July from the balcony of her parents’ bedroom rather than going to the free fireworks display at Faurot Park.

But after she got pregnant and after she gave up ~~Charlotte~~ \-- the baby, she actively avoided places that were traditionally associated with children-- parks, children’s clothing stores, toy stores, etc. But one day after school, she found herself perversely curious and since it was her turn to have the car, (yet another thing Rachel had to share with her and seemed to do willingly) she drove to the park. She sat in her car for a while, wondering if she’d see a small child that looked like her or Puck and got out.

There were hardly any kids around. It was mid February and the cold weather kept most people away. Still, there were a few kids milling around just like there were all year. Quinn walked around, her breath coming out in visible puffs.

That’s when Quinn saw Rachel.

Rachel sitting by herself on that bench under that huge tree by the pond.

Quinn looked around, but there was no one else in sight.

Rachel sat huddled on the bench, arms crossed in front of her, shoulders hunched. She was staring at the ground. It looked like one the loneliest things Quinn had ever seen.

Quinn approached Rachel, but the brunette didn’t seem to register anyone was there. As she got closer, she realized Rachel had her eyes closed. Quinn sat down on the bench next to her and touched Rachel’s knee.

Rachel jumped and her eyes popped open.

“Quinn,” Rachel breathed. Her heart was still racing a little, but she calmed down instantly. “What are you doing here?”

Quinn looked at her quizzically. “What are you?”

She reached for Rachel’s hands. They were ungloved and cold. She brought them to her lips and blew on them. She rubbed them between her hands and then took off her own gloves and passed them to Rachel.

“Here,” she said. “Your hands are freezing.” Who knew how long Rachel had been outside in this weather? It was a miracle Rachel wasn’t frozen solid.

Rachel shook her head. “But then your hands will get cold.”

Quinn grinned and stuck her hands into her the pockets of her parka. “Pockets.”

“But.--”

“Just put them on, okay?”

Rachel’s lips parted to protest, but Quinn gave her a look that silenced her. Rachel put on the gloves without further protest.

“Thanks,” Rachel said quietly.

“Sure,” Quinn said. They were quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “Rachel, what the _hell_ are you doing here? It’s freezing out here and there’s no one around. You could get mugged or raped or something.”

Rachel snorted. “Please,” she scoffed.

Quinn scowled. “Don’t ‘ _please_ ’ me, Rach. Seriously. What the hell are you doing here?”

Rachel looked hesitant. “I just…” she trailed off and shrugged.

“I don’t remember you being this inarticulate,” Quinn teased.

“Well, what are _you_ doing here?” Rachel asked. She’d been coming to the park nearly every day because it was quiet in the winter. It was cold and sometimes it was snowy enough that most people stayed away. It was the one place she could think of where there would be very few people and that she’d be less likely to run into anyone she knew. She’d been coming to the park nearly every day for a few weeks now and she’d never seen Quinn here before.

“Um, well…” Quinn lapsed into silence. She shut her eyes and thought about what she could say, what excuse she could give. But then she gave it more thought. She wanted Rachel to be honest with her, to tell her what had been going on with her for the past few months. If she wanted Rachel to be honest with her, maybe she could start with herself.

Quinn opened her eyes. “Sometimes I think about the baby,” she said. She didn’t call her by the name that Quinn gave her, because it was probably different now. And anyway, Charlotte was hers alone. “And I guess I just wanted to come to the park, see if there were any kids around who might remind me of her. I don’t know. I’m just…I’m curious, you know? It’s not that I think the baby would have been better off with me-- I think we can both agree the baby is better off with parents who really want her and can give her things that I can’t. It’s just…she was _mine_ for a long time and I didn’t stop thinking of her just because she isn’t mine anymore.”

Rachel looked at her intently the entire time Quinn spoke and when Quinn finished, Rachel moved in close and linked arms with Quinn.

“I think you were brave,” Rachel said softly.

Quinn scoffed. “I wanted my life back. I wanted to be able to go out with you to Puck’s parties and to hang out with Brittany and Santana. I wanted to be able to, like, go to the prom. Go to college. I wasn’t brave. I was selfish.”

“But you knew you couldn’t do both,” Rachel pointed out. “You couldn’t be a mom and like, resent the baby for not being able to go out with your friends, you know? You made a choice, and I think it was the right one. It was brave to admit you couldn’t do it right now, and it’s not reasonable to expect you could do it when you didn’t even have help from your parents.”

“I don’t know,” Quinn sighed. “I mean, taking responsibility means accepting all the consequences, right?”

“I’m not so sure that’s the way you’re supposed to view parenting,” Rachel pointed out mildly. “You would have made a _great_ mom, but it wasn’t your time to be one. It wasn’t your turn, and now someone else has her chance to a mom and maybe that person has been waiting a long time for it, you know? And maybe she’ll be _awesome_ at it. And later when you’re ready, you’ll be _awesome_ at it, too.”

“Maybe,” Quinn said quietly. “Anyway. That’s why I was here. I thought I might see some little girl with blonde hair who looked like me, or maybe, God forbid, Puck. Or just see some kids who would be her age and get an idea of what she’d be like now.”

“Kind of the wrong time of year,” Rachel teased gently.

Quinn gave Rachel’s knee a nudge with her own and scowled. “Well, I realized that once I saw how deserted this place is, except for you, that is,” she said. Her tone softened a little. “So what are you doing here?” she asked for at least the third time.

Rachel’s eyes lowered and she looked hesitant and timid. “I…I just needed some place quiet to think,” she replied. She wasn’t exactly well-spoken and articulate at the moment, but it was the truth and she didn’t want to lie to Quinn, not after Quinn had been so open with her about her reasons for being at the park. And anyway, she had no idea what sort of lie she could make up that would be believable anyway.

Rachel had seemed so disconcertingly inward and withdrawn for such a long time now, Quinn wondered what Rachel thought about.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing important,” Rachel said softly.

“But important enough for you to spend hours here?” Quinn asked lightly.

Rachel’s cheeks flushed and her head ducked. “Nothing important,” Rachel repeated. “Seriously,” she insisted. “And anyway, most of it won’t even matter pretty soon.”

It sounded so vague and cryptic, Quinn immediately felt a sense of foreboding. “That sounds really ominous,” she said, concerned. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk?”

Rachel smiled at her. “Seriously. It won’t even matter pretty soon.”

Quinn swallowed hard. “Rachel,” she said quietly. “You’re not…you’re not going to hurt yourself, are you?”

Rachel stared at her in open-mouthed shock. “ _What_?!” she managed to sputter after a long moment of silence.

“You’re not planning on doing something to yourself, right?” Quinn asked softly.

Rachel continued to stare at her, her eyes wide. And then she started laughing. Uproariously. “Wait, are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?” she asked between gasps as she continued to laugh. “You think I’m _suicidal_?” she demanded, cracking up. She clutched her stomach and doubled over laughing.

Quinn slapped Rachel’s back. “Stop laughing!” she said crossly. “You’ve seemed depressed for months, and then you started talking about how nothing was going to matter pretty soon. What was I supposed to think?”

Rachel looked up at her, tried to speak, and then began to laugh again and doubled over again. “Oh my _God_ ,” she gasped. When she said her thoughts wouldn’t matter ‘pretty soon’ she meant she would go away to college soon, and she wouldn’t have to worry about being stuck in Lima or what her growing attraction to Quinn meant. She meant she wouldn’t have to feel guilty every time she saw Noah at school or Mrs. Puckerman around town. She meant she wouldn’t have to feel like she’d just gotten punched in the stomach when someone stopped her dads to tell them she was going to turn out gay because they were gay. She wouldn’t feel like throwing up when her father John would turn to her other father and say, “well, see how much they know, right?”

There were some things she couldn’t change, and she still had a bunch of other things she was thinking about, but at least she’d be away from Lima while she thought about them. She really thought her life would improve vastly if she could just get away from Lima. She felt crappy and guilty more often than not these days, but she wasn’t _suicidal_.

“Stop laughing!” Quinn demanded.

Rachel got on top of the park bench and stood up. She looked behind her to make sure there were no obstructions. “Good bye, cruel world!” she shouted dramatically and then jumped backwards over the back of the bench.

She cleared the bench’s back easily and landed on her feet, but skidded on the icy ground and fell, landing hard on her butt.

“Ow!” Rachel griped.

Quinn scowled at her. “That’s God punishing you,” she declared crossly.

Rachel laughed, got up and reclaimed her seat next to Quinn on the bench. She hadn’t laughed that much in a long time. She’d hadn’t _felt_ like laughing that hard in a long time. She took a deep breath and patted her stomach-- she’d laughed so hard, her stomach hurt.

“I’m not suicidal,” Rachel promised. She’d stopped laughing by then. “I have been a little…” she paused, searching for a good word to use, “down,” she said. “But that’s it.”

“Well, you’ve been a little ‘down’ for months now,” Quinn huffed, still upset Rachel had laughed so hysterically. “You hardly talk, you don’t talk to _anyone_ anymore. You’re not really eating. You’re barely at home. It’s not like I pulled it out of nowhere! I had reasons! If you’re not depressed, what _is_ the matter with you, doofus?”

“Okay, okay,” Rachel said, not wanting to go down this line of conversation. She reached for one of Quinn’s hands. It felt cold, and she took off Quinn’s gloves to return them to her. “Here, now your hands are cold.”

Quinn was ready to protest.

“We’ll just share them or something,” Rachel said. She stuck her hands in her pockets.

“Just…just tell me,” Quinn said. “Are you okay? Because you haven’t seemed okay.”

Rachel laughed and put her arm around Quinn. “It means a lot to me that you’d even think about it,” she said sincerely. “But I really am okay.”

Quinn leaned in and cupped Rachel’s cheeks with her hands. “Your cheeks are cold,” she noted softly. “Why don’t we go home?”

Rachel smiled at her, but pulled away from Quinn’s grasp. “You should go,” she said quietly. “I’m going to stay a while.”

Quinn looked up at the sky. It was getting darker and colder. “I really wished you’d come home with me instead of staying here,” she said softly. “Seriously, Rachel. Whatever you’re thinking about, nothing’s going to change with you freezing your butt off here.”

Rachel sighed deeply. She bit her lower lip and was quiet for a few seconds before she spoke. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Rachel was quiet on the drive home and quiet through dinner. It was hardly unexpected-- Quinn was even accustomed to it. But it was still disconcerting. When they retreated up to their room after the dishes were washed, Rachel laid in her bed reading a book with her iPod turned on, earbuds in both ears. Headphones on seemed to be the universal symbol for ‘go away’ and Rachel body language seemed to be saying that a lot lately. Quinn tried a few times to engage Rachel in conversation, and while Rachel smiled politely and always responded, it was obvious that Rachel’s heart wasn’t in it.

But right before Rachel went to sleep on her side of the room, the brunette called out to her. She’d just come from the restroom and was now standing next to her bed, arms crossed in front of her, looking unsure and coltish.

“Quinn?” Rachel’s voice was soft, almost hesitant.

Quinn looked up from her Spanish book. “Yeah?” she asked, worried.

“Goodbye, cruel world!” Rachel declared dramatically, raising her wrist to her forehead and then flinging herself onto her bed.

“Stop it!” Quinn said, irritated. But she laughed in spite of herself.

Rachel’s laughed raucously and she turned out her lamp. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Quinn said, rolling her eyes.

Rachel tossed and turned for a few minutes, but seemed to get comfortable. But when Quinn herself turned off the lamp on her nightstand, she knew Rachel was still awake by the sound of her breathing. Quinn had slept in the same room with Rachel long enough to tell the difference between Rachel’s breathing when she was asleep and Rachel’s breathing when she was just pretending to be asleep.  
\--  
Quinn awoke with a strangled gasp and opened her eyes, trying to suck in as much air as she could. It’d just been a bad dream, one of those standard ones in which she was being chased and then somehow ended up on a runaway train in the middle of town and then somehow she was underwater. She’d felt herself drowning as she woke up. It made no sense in terms of logic, but everything felt perfectly sensible in her dream, the way the ludicrous and absurd always became sensible in dreams. She knew there was nothing to be afraid of, but she woke up feeling afraid nonetheless. She could only remember the specifics of the dream for a moment before she opened her eyes and then the moment she did, it started to slip away from her and she was only left with bits and pieces of the dream, but still felt afraid and disconcerted.

“Are you okay?” Rachel asked softly.

Quinn cleared her throat. “Yeah,” she rasped, taking in deep breath. “Just…just a bad dream.” She didn’t know where it came from, it just came from nowhere. She picked up her cell phone on her nightstand to check the time. 3am. “Did I wake you or have you been awake all this time?”

Rachel hesitated before she answered. “I was awake,” she admitted.

“What’s wrong?” Quinn asked. “You can’t sleep?”

“What was your dream about?” Rachel asked. “Are you okay?”

Quinn frowned. She knew Rachel was just changing the subject, but she could always change it back. “I can’t really remember. But it was…kind of creepy,” she said with a sigh. She shuddered slightly. “You know when you wake up, and you can kind of remember it, but mostly you just feel gross?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said quietly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll live,” Quinn said wryly. She blew out a breath. “I just…mostly, I just remember feeling scared.”

Rachel was contemplative for a moment. “Do you want to sleep in here with me?” Rachel asked, after a moment’s hesitation.

Quinn paused as she considered the offer. “Do you think you can come in here?” she asked quietly. “I feel like if I put my feet on the ground, something under the bed will like, grab me or something.”

Rachel laughed, “so you’d rather have the poltergeist get me,” she teased, but she was already out of her bed.

“I didn’t say it was a reasonable fear,” Quinn huffed, scooting over in her bed to make room for Rachel.

Rachel crawled in next to her. Rachel noted that Quinn was still trembling and impetuously hugged Quinn and stroked the blonde’s hair. “Tell me about your dream.”

“I don’t really remember it,” Quinn said snuggling into Rachel’s embrace. She shuddered slightly. “I was being chased,” she said. “You know, how it is with those kinds of dreams. People chasing you, and you feel scared, so you run, and it feels like it goes on forever.” She paused. “Then I was on a train.”

“Like an Amtrak train or like a shipping container?”

“What difference does it make?” Quinn asked, pinching Rachel’s hip to scold her.

“Ow,” Rachel complained. She slapped Quinn’s hand. “I was asking for clarification.”

“It was more like those little metro buses,” Quinn said. “Anyway, it was running through the middle of Lima, and the brakes were out or something so it couldn’t stop. And I was on it totally thinking I was going to die. Then for whatever reason, I was underwater and I felt like I was drowning. And then I woke up.”

Rachel rubbed her back. “That sucks, but you’re okay now, right?”

“Well, I was never actually being chased, or on a runaway train or drowning, so, yeah, I’d say I’m pretty good.”

Rachel chuckled. She knew she’d asked a ridiculous question. “Goodbye, cruel world,” she teased.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Stop it. I was legitimately worried about you, and you’re mocking me for it.” She paused. “And the fact that you were wide awake at 3am doesn’t exactly convince me everything is okay with you.”

“Everything’s okay,” Rachel said softly. She tucked some hair away from Quinn’s face and then put her hand on Quinn’s chest, right over her heart. “Your heart’s still beating really fast,” Rachel said. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she pulled her hand away from Quinn’s chest and squeezed Quinn’s shoulder. “Can I get you something? Water? Warm milk or something?”

“No,” Quinn breathed, She nuzzled Rachel’s neck and breathed in deeply. “Don’t move. I’m just… I’m not a fan of the being chased dreams,” Quinn admitted. “I’d have them a lot when I was younger. And I’d always feel like I couldn’t go to my parents because my dad is one of those people who think you should just tough it out, you know?” She sighed. “But sometimes my sister would hear me whining or crying or whatever and she’d come in and she’d get into bed with me.” She sighed as Rachel rubbed her back comfortingly. “She’d do that, just like that, like you’re doing,” she murmured, snuggling into Rachel. “And I’d feel better.” She smiled sadly. “Not that it matters now “

Rachel continued to rub Quinn’s back. “I don’t have any sisters, or a mother,” she said quietly. “But I have two fathers and they’re both pretty awesome.”

“Yeah, they are,” Quinn agreed.

“I have two fathers,” Rachel said softly. “So that means I can share one with you,” she murmured. “And I can kind of be like your sister. I know it’s not the same. But whatever you need, if I can give it to you, you can have it, Quinn. I know I can be _totally_ selfish, but I really did listen when they talked about sharing in kindergarten.”

Quinn laughed softly. “Yeah, you did,” she agreed, because Rachel really did know how to share remarkably well, especially for someone who really never had to share anything. But her heart sank when Rachel said that they could be like sisters. When Quinn initially entered into this living arrangement, she thought the best thing she’d ever achieve with Rachel was a cordial roommate relationship, but some small part of her hoped that they could become close, like sisters. But that was _not_ how the relationship veered into and her feelings for Rachel were not even _remotely_ sisterly.

“Tell me what I can do to make you feel better,” Rachel whispered. “Whatever you need, I’ll give it to you. Or I’ll do it.”

Quinn swallowed hard and found it difficult due to the huge lump that rose up in her throat. She couldn’t respond for a moment, and when she finally regained her ability to speak, her voice came out thick. “Just keep rubbing my back for a while, okay?”

“Okay,” Rachel whispered.

They lay in silence for a while. Rachel continued to rub Quinn’s back and Quinn felt herself become a little less angry and upset about her family. Quinn burrowed closer to Rachel. “Seriously, Rach,” she said, uttering the first words in nearly an hour. “I know something’s bugging you. Just talk to me, will you?”

Rachel was silent for a long time, long enough that Quinn thought that Rachel was just ignoring her. Then Rachel swallowed audibly. “I just…”

She thought about everything-- how her relationship with Noah made her feel like a completely deficient person because even someone like Noah who had a reputation for being a player had the ability to fall in love, and she was increasingly convinced she just wasn’t built for it. How she started sleeping with him again after they broke up because he convinced her that it was just sex, and once again, he got attached and she didn’t and now he was angrier with her than ever. How something disastrous happened during one of her just-for-sex trysts with Noah, and now she had a secret that he’d _kill_ her for, if he ever found out about it, so now Finn was burdened with it, too. How she couldn’t tolerate any more attachments to Lima because she planned on leaving and never coming back and putting behind these last couple awful years. How confusing this all was with Quinn because it felt really good to be next to Quinn and completely terrifying and horrible because it felt so good. But most of all, it was just really _really_ overwhelming. And she was already overwhelmed to begin with, and it just seemed like one thing after another was being piled on top of her.

“Rachel?” Quinn asked quietly, because Rachel’s breathing was coming out in tiny agitated breaths.

“I’m just a little overwhelmed these days. But it’s okay.” Rachel’s voice was faint.

“Why are you so overwhelmed? What’s going on?”

“I…” Rachel swallowed hard, trailed off and sat up. She was thoroughly agitated by the conversation. “I uh, I’m going to go for a run,” she said, standing up. “Try to get some sleep,” she said, walking toward her dresser.

Quinn sat up and got out of bed, following after Rachel. “Are you crazy? It’s like, 4am. Just… calm down and talk to me.”

Rachel shook her head. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I think I’m just going to go for a run. I need some air. Go back to bed, okay?”

Quinn grabbed Rachel’s arm and held on. “So, we’ll crack open a window,” she said. “Don’t be stupid. We don’t have to talk. You can go back to your bed, I’ll go back to mine and we can just be quiet. But _don’t_ leave. It’s 4am.”

“Maybe I’ll go for a drive,” Rachel suggested. She tugged her arm, but Quinn held on.

“Just…stay, okay?” Quinn said. “Don’t leave. I just have this weird feeling something will happen if you leave. It’s really late and there’s no need for you to be running around. I’ll go sleep on the couch and let you have some space, okay?”

Rachel took a deep breath. “You’re right,” Rachel said quietly. She gave Quinn a small smile. “Don’t leave,” she said softly. Quinn’s hand was still on her arm and Rachel placed her hand over Quinn’s. “I wanted some air, but that didn’t mean I wanted space away from you.”

“Really?” Quinn asked dubiously. “I can sleep on the couch.”

“Don’t,” Rachel said softly.

Quinn slid her hand down the length of Rachel’s arm to the brunette’s hand, and held Rachel’s hand in hers. “Come here,” she said softly. She yanked on Rachel’s hand gently to pull Rachel towards her. She hugged Rachel. “Don’t be so sad, Rachel,” Quinn murmured. “You not being in love with Puck doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you kind of smart.”

Rachel chuckled in spite of herself She pressed her face into Quinn’s shoulders. “Don’t try to make me feel better.”

Quinn stroked Rachel’s hair. “I think it kind of goes with the territory when you’re friends, doofus.”

Rachel guffawed and pulled her head away from Quinn’s shoulders, although she did not break the hug. “I just want to make it clear that just because I’m a little upset right now doesn’t mean I’m going to like, drive the car off a cliff or put my head in an oven, okay?”

Quinn slapped Rachel’s butt. “Stop making fun of me for that! It’s _not_ funny.”

Rachel chuckled softly. “Ssswwiiiiiihh.”

Quinn grinned. “Ssswwiiiiiihh,” she echoed softly.

Rachel reached up and palmed Quinn’s cheek.

Quinn drew in a sharp breath and held it.

Rachel stood up on her tip toes and grazed Quinn’s nose with her own. She kissed Quinn’s cheek. “Where were you all my life to stop me from doing things that are crazy and/or inappropriate?” she whispered, her lips hovering near Quinn’s mouth.

Quinn released the breath she was holding in a soft puff. She was fairly sure Rachel could feel it and hoped that she didn’t have morning breath yet. She would be mortified if she did. “A couple miles east, doofus” she whispered.

Rachel stood flat on her feet. She peered up at Quinn. “Thanks for being…” Rachel swallowed hard and stared down at the floor. “Patient with me. I don’t know why I was so freaked out. But you’re right, it’d be crazy to leave at 4am.”

Quinn squeezed Rachel’s hand. “Do you want to get back into my bed?” she asked. She winced when she realized that it sounded like a come-on line.

Rachel ignored the possible double meaning. She gave Quinn a wavering smile. “You don’t mind?”

“I’d kind of like the company,” Quinn said.

“Okay,” Rachel whispered.  
\--

Against Quinn’s better judgment, she kissed Rachel when they got back into her bed.

Against Rachel’s better judgment, she kissed Quinn back.

And soon, Rachel’s hands were reaching under Quinn’s shirt and cupping Quinn’s breasts and even though Quinn knew exactly how that sort of thing played out, because it was almost exactly how she ended up sleeping with Puck, she was still surprised when she took off her own shirt and then insistently tugged at Rachel’s, until Rachel took her off her shirt as well.

Rachel touched the waistband of Quinn’s pajamas bottoms and then seemed to think better of it. She pulled her hand away. “We should stop. We really need to stop.”

“Don’t stop,” Quinn whispered. She reached for Rachel and slipped her hand past the waistband of Rachel’s pajamas bottoms and her panties. “Come here,” she whispered.

Rachel exhaled. She knew, she absolutely knew, this was a bad idea. But she couldn’t stop.  
\--

Puck had been surprisingly gentle with her. It was one of the reasons why Quinn could not look at the experience as a total wash-out. But he wasn’t sweet to her, he wasn’t _nice_. Rachel was all those things with her-- Rachel was gentle, she was sweet and she was _nice_. While Puck seemed more enthralled with just the idea of having sex with her, Rachel seemed genuinely concerned about making sure she was comfortable and that she was happy.

It wasn’t perfect. Quinn was inexperienced, and she’d only had sex once before. And Rachel, Rachel had sex many times before, but only with one person, and that was with Puck. As far as Quinn was concerned, that really didn’t count. But they’d seen enough movies on TV, heard enough jokes about lesbianism that they had some idea what to do. There were moments of awkwardness and discomfort and a few moments that were just simply painful and not in a pleasurable way. It wasn’t necessarily intuitive or simple, but they made do with what they had. It felt good, and for Quinn, it was meaningful.

Her breasts and her stomach were never the same after the baby. They were weirdly stretchy, there was extra skin and Quinn knew she’d never ever in a million years ever wear a shirt that would expose her stomach again. But Rachel simply smiled-- she could feel Rachel smile against her skin.

“You’re beautiful,” Rachel declared, when Quinn awkwardly tried to cover herself with her hands. “You’re perfect,” Rachel whispered.

She came with a strangled cry, Rachel’s mouth between her legs, her fingers clenched into dark hair. “You’re beautiful,” Rachel whispered softly. “You’re perfect. You’re so beautiful, and you’re so perfect.”

“Tell me again,” Quinn choked out, because it’d been such a long time since she felt beautiful or perfect or anything close to it.

“You’re beautiful,” Rachel whispered. “You’re perfect”

It took her a few minutes for her to catch her breath and then she reached for Rachel, because she believed there was an understanding of reciprocity with women. She reached for Rachel hesitantly. She was curious and afraid, but she desperately just wanted to touch Rachel, to taste her the way Rachel had tasted her.

“Don’t,” Rachel whispered pulling away.

Quinn swallowed hard. “I know I may not be as good as Puck at this,” she said. “But I can do this. Let me do this.”

“You don’t have to,” Rachel said quietly. “We should stop.”

One of Quinn’s hands slipped between Rachel’s legs. She felt something inside of herself twitch. Rachel was wet and Quinn felt herself become even wetter. She felt herself want Rachel even more.

Rachel squirmed away. “I think we should stop.”

“I want to,” Quinn whispered. “Just tell me what you want. I can do this. I want to do this. Just…tell me…” Quinn swallowed hard and blushed. She’d never felt so awkward and embarrassed in her life, which was saying a lot because she’d already given birth and giving birth ranked up pretty high on a list of humiliating moments. “Tell me what you want. I can do this, tell me what I need to do,” she pleaded.

Rachel kissed her. “Just stay like that,” she whispered, caressing Quinn’s hair. “I want to try again,” she murmured and then Rachel’s tongue ran down the length of her body and Quinn didn’t even _think_ about the fact that Rachel didn’t really seem to want to be touched. Rachel’s mouth slipped between her legs again and Quinn’s eyes shut.

It hadn’t felt like this with Puck. It was better with Rachel and Quinn knew it was better simply because she actually had feelings for Rachel. She didn’t have feelings for Puck.

“I love you, Rachel,” Quinn mumbled. She wiped at her eyes and she reached for Rachel and pulled her close. “I’ve wanted this for so long, even when I couldn’t admit it.”

Rachel was quiet for a long time. Quinn thought maybe Rachel had fallen asleep.

Right before she fell asleep, she heard Rachel speak.

“Take it back.”  
\--  
Rachel was already gone when Quinn woke up a couple of hours later that morning. It’d been incredibly hurtful to wake up to find that not only was Rachel out of the bed, but that she’d already left the house.

Rachel was scarce at school. Quinn shared a few classes with her, but Rachel came in just before the bell rang and practically bolted out of the room when class was over.

Quinn found Rachel at her locker after school. “You were avoiding me today,” she said neutrally.

“Sorry,” Rachel said. She paused. “I was honestly a little freaked out.”

“Well, I am, too, but you don’t see me ducking into an empty classroom to avoid you.”

Rachel winced. “You saw that?”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “I’m not blind and you’re not invisible. Come on. Let’s go home and talk before your dads get home.” She linked arms with Rachel and frowned when Rachel not-so subtly pulled away by bending down to fuss with the strap on her shoe.

They walked to the car and Quinn slipped into the driver’s seat. They drove in silence on the way home, each girl becoming increasingly agitated due to the heavy silence in the car. Rachel followed Quinn cautiously up to their shared bedroom, feeling a heavy sense of foreboding. She was pretty sure this would not end well.

“What the fuck are we doing?” Quinn whispered, the minute they stepped into the bedroom.

“I don’t know,” Rachel said carefully. “What is it that you think we’re doing?”

“We had sex, Rachel,” Quinn said. “I mean, what does that mean for us? What are we doing? What are we going to do?”

Rachel’s face was impassive. “I guess that depends on what you want,” she said flatly. “If you want to do it again, that’s fine by me. But if we’re going to do it again, we need to keep things fun.”

Quinn frowned slightly. “What are you saying?”

“I don’t want feelings to get involved,” Rachel said bluntly. “Don’t tell me you love me.”

Quinn’s features contorted in outrage. “What the fuck are you saying?” she demanded. “You don’t want feelings to get involved?” she parroted. “What is wrong with you?!” Quinn exclaimed. “Of _course_ feelings get involved. I wouldn’t have slept with you, if I didn’t _already_ have feelings for you!” Quinn shouted. “I don’t just sleep _around_! I’ve only had sex _twice_ , and the first time was a mistake! I did it with you because I thought it would mean something to _both_ of us!” Quinn was dangerously close to bursting into tears. “What the hell are you saying to me?”

Rachel shut her eyes and exhaled slowly through her nose. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I should have stopped you. I should have stopped it. I don’t want anything more. It can’t be anything more than what we had last night.”

Quinn looked at her. “So, it was nothing to you,” she said. “What we did, it meant nothing to you. We could have been watching a movie or going shopping or something and it would have been pretty much the same thing. Is that it?”

“Quinn, _no_ ,” Rachel said softly. “Of course it meant something to me. It just…”

“Oh my God,” Quinn whispered. “You’re Puck. You’re just a girl version of Puck. He told me it meant something to him, too. But it didn’t. So let me get this straight. You’re okay with sleeping with me as long as there are no feelings involved, right? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Quinn--”

“Well, why are we even bothering to talk? Talking only makes feelings develop.” Quinn snapped. She shoved Rachel so that the dark-haired girl fell onto her bed. Quinn pushed Rachel onto her back, straddled the brunette’s hips and roughly reached under Rachel’s shirt to grope one of Rachel’s breasts. “This is all we need to do, right?”

“Stop,” Rachel said softly. “Stop it. Don’t. Please. Not like this.” She shut her eyes, squeezing them together as hard as she could.

“Like what, Rach?” Quinn asked. “Like fucking? I thought all you wanted to do with me was fuck”

“I can’t love you,” Rachel said softly, not opening her eyes.

Quinn stopped moving. “What?”

“I can’t love you,” Rachel repeated.

Quinn swallowed hard and crawled off Rachel. She scooted back to the foot of the bed. She brought her knees up to her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“You want love,” Rachel said softly. “You want to be in love with the person you’re having sex with. That’s what you want. But I can’t do that. I can’t give you that.”

“What are you talking about?” Quinn whispered.

Rachel sat up and used a pillow to cover herself. Despite the fact that she was fully clothed, she felt naked. “I can’t love you, Quinn. I don’t know how,” she said quietly. “If all you want is sex, I can give that to you. But if you want something more, then that’s just not who I am. If you want a girlfriend, then I’m not the girlfriend type.”

“What are you talking about? You were dating Puck. You could be _Puck’s_ girlfriend, but not mine?”

“I wasn’t in love with him,” Rachel said flatly. “I tried to be and I wanted to be, but it wouldn’t connect for me no matter how many times I slept with him.” Rachel gazed intently at Quinn. “We’re friends and I’d like to stay friends,” she said quietly. “If you want a friends with benefits relationship, then I’m okay with that. But if you want me to be your girlfriend just because we slept together--”

“Just because we slept together?” Quinn repeated incredulously, her voice rising to an outraged shriek. She could not believe this was happening to her again. She could not believe she was slept with someone and once again, it was completely meaningless to the other person.

“I’m not going to fall in love with you,” Rachel said bluntly. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I’d be able to. If you want to keep sleeping together, then you can’t tell me you love me. Ever.”

Quinn glared at her. “What the hell is so wrong with _me_ that _you_ wouldn’t be able to fall in love with me?” she demanded. “You’re the school loser here, Berry, not me. What the fuck is so wrong with me telling you that I loved you?” she demanded. “Not that I meant it,” she said quickly, because now she was _mortified_ that she’d said it. “It’s just something people say when they have sex. I didn’t actually mean that I loved you.”

Rachel looked relieved and Quinn desperately wanted to punch Rachel in the face because of it. She smiled sadly at Quinn. “There’s nothing wrong with _you_ ,” she said softly. “You’re awesome.”

“Obviously,” Quinn snapped venomously. “The problem here is you.”

Rachel fell into silence and Quinn stared at her expectantly.

“ _Well_?!” Quinn demanded.

Rachel lost her temper. “Well, _what_?” she snapped. “All we did was sleep together, Quinn. It was just sex. It happened once and it never has to happen again. Why don’t we just forget about it, pretend like it never happened and go back on with our lives? It was just a really weird night and it never would have happened on a regular night. We both agree the problem here is me, not you. There’s something wrong with me, not you. What more do you want me to say?”

“God!” Quinn exclaimed. “Seriously, what is _wrong_ with you? I mean, there is something _really_ wrong with you!”

Quinn looked at Rachel, seeing the brunette in an entirely new light and it wasn’t a favorable one. She remembered her talk with Rachel after the brunette had broken up with Puck. Rachel had said then that she hadn’t been in love with Puck, that she just hadn’t been able to do it and that she didn’t think that capability was in her. ‘I just don’t think I’m built for a relationship,’ Quinn remembered Rachel saying.

“There is,” Rachel agreed. “So you shouldn’t want anything to do with me anyway.”

Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose trying to ward off her headache. “You’re right. I shouldn’t and now I don’t. So congratulations.”

“You’ll see it’s better this way,” Rachel said quietly, standing up. She grabbed her purse. “Believe me,” she said softly. “You’re going to see it’s better this way. You’re going to be a lot happier in the long run.”

Quinn shook her head. “There is something wrong with you,” she said softly. “You are completely fucked up.”

Something seemed to snap in Rachel. “No one forced you to have sex with me,” she snapped. “I didn’t force you into it. I already told you I was sorry. I’m sorry you had the misfortune of having sex with me, Quinn. But I didn’t force you. And I can’t help that you feel things that I can’t. I can’t fucking do it. And I am tired of feeling like this horrible person because I can’t do it. Just because I wasn’t in love with him or with you doesn’t make me a robot!” Rachel shouted, tears springing to her eyes. “I’m not a terrible person! I don’t do things to hurt people. I didn’t want to hurt him or you! I--”

Quinn stared at Rachel, her eyes wide. “I didn’t call you a _robot_ ,” she said softly. “And I never said you were a terrible person.”

Rachel clenched her jaw, trying to reign in her temper. She’d said too much, and they both knew it. Quinn talked to her in that tone of voice people reserved for talking to crazy people. She couldn’t stand being looked at like that. She was tired of feeling like an awful person all the time. She was tired of hurting people she actually cared deeply about.

Rachel took a shuddering breath, to calm herself down. “I promise I’ll make things as easy as possible for you,” she said hoarsely. “You’re right,” she said. “I fucked this up. You…you should stay, no matter what. It’s only a few more months and then we’ll both go to college. And I promise, I’ll make this easy as possible for you.”

Quinn reached out to her, but the brunette was too far away for them to actually touch. “Rach,” she whispered. “What’s going on with you?”

Rachel shook her head. “ _I_ don’t even know.”

Rachel left the room and Quinn was left alone.

\--

Things were understandably tense after that. Quinn wished she’d moved in with her grandmother, and Rachel was around even less than before, so she didn’t even have the satisfaction of being angry with Rachel for being in her face. The worst was to see Rachel at school--her face always so expressionless every time Quinn looked at her. Except, of course, when they were in Glee and when Rachel sang.

When Rachel sang, everything about Rachel seemed _real_. Not that Rachel was fake-- she wasn’t like those judgey girls she used to be friends with in the purity club. But some part of Quinn had always known that no matter how close to Rachel she became, Rachel was holding back.

But when Rachel sang, she didn’t hold back. It wasn’t so much that she took on the characteristics of the song. It’s not like she died a lonely death every time she sang ‘On My Own.’ It was just that when Rachel sang, she always put her full heart into it, and it was the one and only time Quinn ever had an unadulterated glimpse of the real Rachel, not the Rachel that was presented to the world.

It was three weeks of discomfort and sullen, quiet anger before something changed.  
\--

Rachel came home one day straight after school. Quinn was already home and she stared at Rachel with barely disguised shock. She’d become so accustomed to Rachel’s avoidance and had come to rely upon it to get through the day, she was unreasonably angry to see Rachel.

“Hi,” Rachel said softly.

Quinn glared at Rachel, scowling. She did not respond.

“I’m an asshole,” Rachel said quietly.

“You are,” Quinn agreed.

“I like you,” Rachel whispered. “A lot.”

“Well, that doesn’t matter. Because _I_ don’t like _you_ anymore.”

Rachel nodded slightly. “That’s okay,” she said with a sad smile. “I don’t blame you. I don’t really like myself at the moment, either.”

Quinn softened, but only by a miniscule degree. “Well, I might still like you a little bit. But not a lot. You’re a dumb ass, you get on my nerves and you were really mean after we had sex. You were like Angel on _Buffy_.”

Rachel was offended by the analogy. “I wasn’t that bad.”

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Get on with your apology, Berry.”

Rachel nodded. “I just…I wanted you to know you didn’t do anything wrong. I mean, I like you. You’re my friend…you _were_ my friend,” she corrected quietly, because whatever she and Quinn were at the moment, it wasn’t friends. “It was my own…” she swallowed hard. “It was my own issue. I don’t know, something’s wrong with me or something,” she said in frustration. “But I wanted things to be really clear, there is nothing wrong with you.” She gave Quinn a sad smile. “It wouldn’t connect for me with Noah, either. So it’s not you. It’s me. I wanted you to understand that, okay? You did nothing wrong. There’s nothing wrong with you. You…you’re _perfect_. I’m sorry I made you feel so bad. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“Rachel,” Quinn said softly, feeling sympathy replace her anger. But only a little, because she was still completely hurt, and she never expected to be hurt by Rachel. “Rachel, just _talk_ to me. Even it doesn’t help, you might feel better than how you’re feeling right now.”

Rachel looked exhausted. “Quinn, it doesn’t matter.”

Quinn stood up and approached Rachel slowly. She hesitantly reached for Rachel’s hand and held it. “You can try, can’t you?” She squeezed Rachel’s hand.

“You shouldn’t be nice to me right now,” Rachel whispered, looking like she was going to burst into tears.

“You can try, can’t you?” Quinn repeated, deciding to ignore Rachel’s statement. She squeezed Rachel’s hand. “Can’t you?” she asked again.

Rachel swallowed hard. She squeezed back. “Yeah,” she said hoarsely.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:** Absolute Beginners  
**Author:** Sulkygeek  
**Rating:** NC-17 lite. Really more of an R, but just being safe.  
**Length:** a+b= a whopping 17,000+. I’m sorry!  
**Spoilers:** Through Sectionals  
**Summary:** Rachel and Quinn have feelings for one another after sharing a drunken kiss. But they definitely do not want it to happen.

Also, I totally stole this title from a David Bowie song. The line about “wanting the thrill, not the girl” was totally plagiarized from my beautiful LJ friend Chloe in a Dana/Alice story she once wrote which I can’t seem to find again. It was perfect for this story, so I stole it. And don’t worry. The angst has (mostly) left the building. I blame my pregnancy and a childhood enriched with Korean music videos and Korean soap operas.

Songs referenced in this chapter: Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan), Seasons of Love (Rent OST), Someone Saved my Life Tonight (Elton John), You’re the One that I Want (Grease), Melody (Kate Earl)

* * *

 

Rachel started her freshman year at McKinley High cautiously optimistic. She knew she was going to work hard and do her best to get out of Lima and into Julliard. Then she’d start a career, earn fame and respect and end up happy. She didn’t mind working hard, because she truly believed hard work was the only way she was going to aspire to anything. And that was exactly what she did-- she worked hard to do her best to get out of Lima, she kicked ass at her Julliard audition and now she was just waiting, but she was pretty sure she was going to get in. It really seemed like all her dreams were just waiting in line to come true. But so much happened between her freshman year and senior year and she still had the same dreams, but she didn’t feel like the same girl anymore.

At the moment, Quinn was just _looking_ at her and Rachel was at a loss for words.

Rachel looked down at her hand. Quinn was still holding onto it. She gently pulled it away and took a few steps backward. She crossed her arms in front of herself. She cleared her throat. “Um,” Rachel said quietly, and just that one word came out in a crack. “I just…I really need you to understand it’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong. You were perfect.” She smiled wistfully at Quinn. “You’re perfect,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Quinn said flatly. “So you said.”

It didn’t matter how many times Rachel said it. All Quinn could remember was Rachel being gone when she woke up, avoiding her at school to the point Rachel ducked into an empty classroom to avoid her. All she could remember was Rachel not even looking at her, and then describing their night together as “just sex.”

Rachel gave her a half-hearted smile. She tiredly sat on her bed and Quinn sat down next to her.

“I meant it,” Rachel said softly. She bit her lip and gazed so intently at Quinn, the blonde started to feel a little uncomfortable. “You’re perfect.”

“But not enough for you to want to be with me, right?” Quinn asked. “Or even, you know, stay in bed when you woke up next to me.”

Rachel looked confused. “What?”

There’d been a time in her life when Quinn was at the very top of the social strata at school. She was so on top of it, in fact, that as a freshman, there’d been senior girls who were afraid of her, who’d been intimidated by her. She’d thoroughly enjoyed it. She wasn’t going to lie or deceive herself-- she’d enjoyed it.

There had been plenty of boys who just wanted one night with her to experience what it was like to be with Quinn Fabray and she’d enjoyed the fact that while they wanted her, she’d never give them the satisfaction. Puck had been that type of boy, and sometimes it killed her that he’d been the one she’d been with. She wouldn’t have regretted losing her virginity to Finn, because he’d loved her and wanted her for more than just the physical.

But Puck wasn’t like Finn. He’d just wanted to see what it was like to be with Quinn Fabray. Once she stopped looking so perfect, once she got fat, her feet swelled and her face broke out because of all the hormones, Puck stopped being interested. It was like a switch went off in his head. She suspected Rachel must have felt the same way, that she’d already experienced the ‘perfection’ that was Quinn Fabray, so there was no need for an encore.

“You wanted the thrill, but not the girl, right?” Quinn asked quietly. “You just wanted to satisfy a curiosity, but once you did, then you just stopped being interested, right? I mean, you were gone before I even woke up that morning.”

Quinn bit the inside of her cheek and willed herself not to cry. It’d really hurt her feelings to wake up that morning and realize Rachel was gone. How hard could it have been to stay, they _shared_ a room! Rachel told her she was beautiful, that she was perfect, and for a brief while, Quinn _did_ feel beautiful and perfect again. For a while, she wasn’t Quinn Fabray who used to be so pretty, who used to have the most perfect body, but then she got knocked up, and oh, did you hear, she gave the baby away. Quinn was tired of feeling like she was tarnished or something. No one looked at her in the eye anymore, there was no more respect or admiration, and while Quinn had come to realize how fleeting and meaningless those things were from people who didn’t actually know her or love her, she did miss it all the same.

The way Rachel touched her, whispered to her, kissed her, all of it was so gentle and almost reverent, that it completely caught her off guard when Rachel was gone when she was woke up, when Rachel described their night as “just sex” like it was even comparable to the half-hour Quinn spent with Puck before she had to take off running when she’d realized what she’d done. In her mind, there’d been no comparison, but she ended up feeling just as bad afterward. She really hoped this wouldn’t keep happening to her. She wasn’t the nicest person in the world (she suspected that title might go to Brittany), but she thought she deserved more than people only wanting to have sex with her to satisfy a curiosity and then throwing her away.

Rachel’s eyes widened. “What?” she asked. “God, _no_ ,” she said, reaching for Quinn. She clutched Quinn’s hands hard, bringing them against her chest. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew how ridiculously clichéd she looked doing it, but she couldn’t help herself. “I completely freaked out,” she said sincerely, peering deep into Quinn’s eyes. “I…I liked you,” she said softly. “I had…” she cleared her throat. “I had feelings for you. I wasn’t trying to satisfy some curiosity.”

“You had feelings for me?” Quinn asked softly. “Seriously? Or are you just saying that because you think that’s what I want to hear?”

Rachel swallowed hard. “I mean it,” she said quietly. “I had feelings for you.” She smiled tremulously. “I _like_ you,” she said softly. She blushed and her gaze dropped. “I _thought_ about you all the time.” She gave a slight nod. “I had feelings for you,” she whispered, more to herself than to Quinn. She bit her lip and looked up at Quinn, although she did not make eye contact. “But I didn’t _want_ to have feelings for you. It just made my life _so_ much more confusing.”

“Why?” Quinn asked quietly. Her feelings for Rachel complicated her life, too, but she was pretty sure her reasons were probably going to be different from Rachel’s.

“I just…I didn’t want to get attached to you or anyone else for that matter. Even with Noah, no matter how many times we slept together, I couldn’t fall in love with him. I couldn’t feel the same way. It just wouldn’t connect for me, so I really couldn’t… But I…I did have feelings for you after we slept together and I…I did have feelings for you before we did. I wasn’t trying to satisfy some weird curiosity. I’d never do that to you.”

“You _really_ hurt me,” Quinn said, and she was embarrassed because she couldn’t hide the way her voice wavered or the way she said it in her I’m-going-to-cry voice. “How can you tell me that you had feelings for me? How could you tell me I was beautiful and perfect and then just _leave_ and not even talk to me at school? You _avoided_ me. I mean, you took one look at me and jumped into Fiorelli’s room.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel said contritely. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. You did nothing wrong. You were perfect. You _are_ perfect. It’s just that when it started…” Rachel blushed. “I thought it was just going to be sex,” she whispered. “I thought it was going to be okay because I thought it was just going to be about sex for both of us, and that was it. But then you told me that you _loved_ me and I freaked out. Because you, you _can’t_ love me. You can’t.”

Quinn’s cheeks flushed. “I didn’t mean it,” she lied. “It just came out because we had sex.”

“I know that now,” Rachel said softly. “I’m sorry. It’s just, Noah would always say it to me and I could never say it back, at least, not…you know…” Rachel blushed again. “Not right afterward. It freaked me out, so I left. But it was never about you.”

She’d told Noah she loved him, because she had. But never right after sex because it always felt like if she’d said it then, it was like telling him she was in love with him, that she was somehow promising herself to him. And she didn’t feel those things.

“Oh,” Quinn said quietly.

Quinn remembered that night clearly. She remembered telling Rachel she loved her. She remembered telling Rachel, “I’ve wanted this for so long, even when I couldn’t admit it.” And she remembered she’d meant every word because she didn’t just say things just because the occasion dictated it. Sometimes, she said things out of anger or because her feelings were hurt, but most of the time, she meant the things she said. When she told Rachel she loved her, she’d meant it.

And of course, she remembered how quiet Rachel had been after that.

“Take it back,” Rachel whispered that night. Quinn remembered that very clearly, despite the fact Rachel said it to her right before Quinn had fallen asleep.

“I didn’t want you to mean it,” Rachel said, dropping Quinn’s hands and pulling away slightly. She crossed her arms in front of herself. “I just…I don’t want to start anything. Can you understand that? We’re both leaving Lima, soon.” She looked at Quinn meaningfully. “ _Both_ of us,” she said emphatically. “And I just…I can’t do this again. I mean, that whole thing with Noah? And then you and I…” Rachel swallowed so hard, it was audible. “It was just really overwhelming for me,” she said softly. “I can’t go through it again. I just can’t,” Rachel said

Okay,” Quinn said quietly. “Look, why don’t you just tell me what happened with Puck? You never talked about it, and maybe if you talked about it, you’d finally feel better. And maybe I’ll understand where you’re coming from, because honestly, Rachel, it sounds like you’re trying to make excuses for being crappy to me after we…well, you know.”

“I’m sorry I did that,” Rachel said softly. “I’m sorry you felt so bad. I’m so so sorry, Quinn. You have no idea how sorry I am. I keep thinking about what I did to you and I feel _so_ bad. I’m _sorry_.”

“Just talk to me, okay? What happened with Puck? You’ve been moping for _so_ long. Just forget what you and I did for a moment and just _talk_ to me like you used to. I’m not saying I could make you feel better, but maybe you just need to talk about it.”

“I don’t really need to,” Rachel said flatly.

“You said you’d try,” Quinn reminded gently.

Rachel sighed. “Yeah, okay,” she said quietly. She was silent for a few minutes and then she sighed again and took in a deep breath. “I hurt Noah’s feelings,” Rachel said quietly. “I feel awful for hurting Noah’s feelings.”

“You’re still upset about breaking up with Puck?” Quinn asked.

“After we broke up, he was _so_ angry with me,” Rachel whispered.

“I remember,” Quinn said quietly. “And you were so upset.”

“But after a few weeks, he finally stopped being mad at me to talk to me,” Rachel said softly. “And I was _so_ happy he forgave me. He said we could still be friends and then he said you know, we could be friends with benefits if I wanted.”

Quinn snorted in disgust. “God, men are such pigs.”

“I was okay with it,” Rachel said quietly. “So we started…” she trailed off uncomfortably. She cleared her throat. “I started having sex with him again.”

“You did?” Quinn asked faintly.

“He said feelings didn’t have to get involved,” Rachel whispered.

“He is such an asshole,” Quinn said, outraged.

“No,” Rachel protested. She sniffled. “I’m the asshole,” she said quietly. “When he said feelings didn’t have to get involved, that he didn’t care about being in a relationship, it would just be sex, I believed him.” She swallowed hard. “I believed him because I _can_ do it.”

“ _You’re_ the asshole?” Quinn said in disbelief.

“I _really_ wanted to be _able_ to fall in love with him,” Rachel said quietly. “But I didn’t want to actually fall in love with him.” Rachel sniffled and she wiped at her eyes. She hated herself a little for crying about it.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Quinn said softly. She hesitantly moved closer to Rachel, because she remembered that Rachel had been the one to pull away. The brunette seemed to flinch and so Quinn moved back. “Can you explain it to me?”

Rachel sniffed. “I didn’t want anything serious,” she said quietly. “I mean, I didn’t want some boyfriend I was in love with that I would have to leave when I’d go away to college. I just wanted to have some fun, you know?”

“Sure,” Quinn said softly. “That makes sense.”

“At first it was _perfect_ with Noah. We had fun and everything was fine. But it started to get really serious and I was just…way… _way_ over my head,” Rachel admitted. “It just spun out of control and I was too much of a coward to tell him that it was too much. He started telling me he loved me and asking me to stay here in Lima with him, just for two years so he could take care of his mom and Emily. And I kept waiting to be in love with him, even though I didn’t really want to be in love with him. Because that’s how _normal_ people react--”

“You’re normal,” Quinn interrupted quietly. She paused. “I mean, you’re a total freak, with the way you wake up at the buttcrack of dawn and dress in argyle, but you’re _normal_.”

Rachel chuckled. “Quinn,” she said softly, swatting at the blonde’s knee.

“Go on,” Quinn said encouragingly. She reached out and gently squeezed Rachel’s hand.

Rachel took a deep breath. “I kept waiting for something to click, but nothing did. I didn’t want to fall in love with him, but I wanted to have the _ability_ to fall in love with him, you know? And I just…I don’t think it’s in me.”

“It’s in you,” Quinn said softly. “I know it is.”

Rachel had always been nice to her, even when she was mean to Rachel. And Rachel was just so sweet to her and almost everyone else. Quinn didn’t think a person who could be as nice as Rachel would be incapable of falling in love with another person. It just didn’t make any sense to her.

“I don’t think it is,” Rachel whispered. “I mean, he was my first boyfriend and despite what you think of him, he was _so_ good to me.”

Weren’t you supposed to fall in love with your first boyfriend? Wasn’t that first love supposed to mean something even when it didn’t work out, and most of the time, it didn’t? Didn’t that first relationship sort of set a stage for future relationships? Rachel wasn’t deluding herself into thinking a high school relationship was the model for all future adult relationships. But everything she’d seen, heard, read seemed to indicate there was a common thread between relationships, some kind of continuity.

She’d had a crush and brief flirtation with Finn, a relationship with Noah and…whatever it was she had with Quinn. And the only common thread between all three of them was that she didn’t want the burden of attachment and she couldn’t even seem to really feel it.

She’d loved each of them in her own way, but she wasn’t in love with any of them. And it wasn’t like she wanted to fall in love _now_ when she was so close to going off to college, because that would only break hearts. But she wanted to be able to fall in love eventually and she wasn’t all that confident she could.

Quinn looked at her dubiously, because she highly doubted Puck was good to Rachel. It just didn’t seem like him.

“Seriously,” Rachel insisted. “He was, he was _so_ good to me. I know you guys don’t have a great history, but he was good to me.” Rachel looked thoughtful. “It kind of surprised me too,” she admitted softly. “Because I thought Noah was safe. I thought he was like me, I didn’t think he wanted anything serious. So I really didn’t expect him to be sweet to me, I thought…” she swallowed hard. “I thought I was just going to be fun for him and I was okay with that.”

From the way he acted, Rachel thought Noah was one of those guys who just wanted sex. She thought they could just have sex, spend some time together, eat a few meals, watch a few movies and just have _fun_. She’d been completely unprepared for the way he just seemed to _feel_ things that she didn’t. And she realized that _he_ was the normal one, that he started to feel things over time the more they were together. And that loved developed over time. It didn’t happen for her.

When Noah approached her after they broke up, took her by the arm and pulled her aside and asked if she wanted to hang out, no feelings attached, it’d been a _relief_. She felt like maybe she wasn’t a total freak after all. But soon enough, he told her he was in love with her again, and she just wasn’t in love with him, and she felt awful.

“Rachel,” Quinn said quietly. “That’s _awful_. Why would you be okay with just…I mean, it sounds like you’re okay with just being used or something.”

Rachel bit her lip. “That’s not how I see it, I just…I just wanted it to be fun. But it just got really intense and he started saying he loved me, and that was the last thing I wanted to hear. And of course, I loved him, too. I mean, how could I not, you know? But he just kept saying it and I just…I wasn’t in love with him. I didn’t really even want to be with him anymore. And it’s not that I fell out of love with him. It’s that I never fell in love to begin with. There was all this pressure, and he didn’t even know he was pressuring me. He kept making all these plans for us after graduation and my plan for after graduation didn’t include him.”

“So you’re not ready for a commitment. You’re 17, that doesn’t make you a bad person. And it doesn’t make you incapable of love, doofus. It just means you were smart enough not to fall in love with Puck.”

Rachel gave her a tight smile. Quinn didn’t get it, and Rachel didn’t expect her to. “When we started having sex again, he said he didn’t love me anymore and that it was okay, we were just having fun. And I was _good_ with that. But then he started talking again about moving to New York right after graduation and he started telling me he loved me again.” Rachel clenched her jaw. “The condom broke one day,” she admitted softly.

Quinn froze. “What?”

“The condom broke,” Rachel repeated. “And then I pretended like it didn’t happen, which was stupid because I could have just gotten Plan B “We had to wait a few weeks for me to take a pregnancy test. He told me that he loved me either way, and whatever happened, we’d deal with it together. But I could see it in his face, he wanted the baby, the way he wanted the baby with you. But I didn’t _want_ it, and I didn’t want to deal with it together. I wanted to handle it and then move on. I finally took a pregnancy test.” She pulled in a deep breath. “I told him it was negative, but it was positive,” she whispered. “And then he said it was okay, that he loved me. I lied right to his face and he told he loved me.”

“What happened?” Quinn whispered. “What did you do? Why didn’t you talk to me?”

Rachel cleared her throat. “Do you remember that day two months ago when I left, like, super early?”

“Yeah,” Quinn said. “You said you were going to go for a run at the track field and then you had to meet your study group for AP Government.” She sort of vaguely remembered that day, but it wasn’t so unusual for Rachel to leave the house before she did, and it wasn’t so unusual for Rachel to come home long after she did. It hadn’t seemed so unusual then, except for the hour of morning that Rachel was slipping out. But she did remember she didn’t see Rachel at all at school that day. Something in her memory clicked. “You were really sick when you came home.” Quinn whispered. “Did you…” She stared at Rachel. “Did you have an abortion?”

Rachel couldn’t look at her. “I couldn’t tell Noah. He would have freaked out. He would _kill_ me if he ever found out.” She sighed. “I told Finn,” she admitted. “And he drove me to West Virginia, because they don’t require you to get parental consent.”

“Your dads would have let you,” Quinn said softly. “You know that.”

“I know,” Rachel said softly. “But I tell them, I couldn’t look at them. I’ve disappointed them so much lately. I couldn’t tell them.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me?” Quinn asked. “I would have driven you. I would have taken you.”

Rachel scoffed. “Oh, come on,” she said. “Like you would have taken me for my abortion. Right.”

“I would have,” Quinn insisted. “It wasn’t the right choice for _me_ but--”

“I couldn’t talk to you,” Rachel cut in. “I just couldn’t. You were being unselfish when you decided to have the baby, and you were being unselfish when you decided to give the baby up for adoption. I’m _nothing_ but selfish. I never even thought about it. There was no choice to be made. I didn’t want to _talk_ about what to do, I already knew.”

“I wouldn’t have tried to talk you out of it,” Quinn said, offended by the implication that she would have.

“I know,” Rachel said. “But I still couldn’t talk to you about it. It just…it made me feel like a worse person than you that I didn’t even think about keeping it. Not even for a second.”

Part of the reason she tried to spend as little time as home as possible and was so scarce at home was that looking at Quinn made her feel like a less decent person. If there was one thing the experience taught Rachel, it was that she was _selfish_. She knew what Noah would want and how he would feel, but she just didn’t _care_. She knew how Finn would feel about helping her, but she really needed someone to help her, so she didn’t _care_ how he felt as long as he just helped her. She was _selfish_. When she looked at her fathers and saw the way they treated one another, the one thing they tried to be was unselfish with one another. She couldn’t seem to do that for _anyone_ , not even people she cared deeply about, not even people she loved. So there was no way she’d ever truly fall in love. Her first priority was herself.

“I wouldn’t have tried to talk you out of it,” Quinn repeated. “I would have helped you. You _know_ I’ve been there, and I _really_ needed someone to talk to back then. I would have understood. You could have talked to me!”

“I know,” Rachel said quietly. But talking to Quinn would have just made her feel guiltier and she was already consumed by guilt. “Anyway, after it happened, Noah kept telling me he loved me, that wanted to move with me after graduation. His plan was _always_ to stay in Lima for two more years so he could help his mom out and wait for his sister to get to middle school so that she was old enough to be home alone for a few hours while their mom was at work. He was, like, re-planning his entire life and it was just too much pressure. I kept thinking how I had this huge secret from him and every time I looked at him, I felt guilty. Every time I saw Mrs. Puckerman, I felt guilty. I couldn’t see him without feeling like this terrible person. It was just _too_ much.”

She just walked around feeling awful all the time, no matter where she went. She _still_ walked around feeling awful. It was why she vastly preferred just to be alone, because she was comfortable with that and every time she was around other people, she just felt bad again.

“It would be for anyone,” Quinn said.

“So I had to end things again,” Rachel said. “And he was _so_ angry and just so hurt,” Rachel whispered. “I tried to explain to him it wasn’t his fault, that it was all mine. But he was so _mad_.” Rachel stared down at her lap. “He got mean,” she said, wincing at the memory of Noah shouting at her, and calling her names that he’d never, not even once, uttered in her presence about _other_ people. He’d shouted other names at her, too. When they were dating, she told him his coarse language offended her, and he tried to change, at least when he was with her. Now she just wished she’d let him be, that she hadn’t scold him every time someone cut them off in traffic and he called them a ‘bitch,’ ‘whorebag’ ‘douchebag’ or ‘asshole.’ He’d stopped saying those things in front of her, and so it was particularly hurtful when he said those things _to_ her.

When it was added with him calling her a “robot fucking cunt,” and telling her that having sex with someone but being wholly unable to fall in love with them just made her a WHORE (shouted at her), so maybe she should go off and do that, she felt pretty terrible. Plus, it was pretty ironic coming from him, but she didn’t think it was the right time to point it out to him, because if he was angry enough to judge her and call her names, it wasn’t the right time for her to point out anything. And she knew she had no right to feeling bad, because she was the jerk who hurt him, but it made her feel awful. No one liked to be called names, even if she kind of felt it was warranted and she pretty much deserved it. And no one enjoyed being flat-out told that they were a terrible person.

“What do you mean, he got ‘mean’?” Quinn asked quietly.

Rachel smiled sadly at her. “It wasn’t anything I didn’t deserve,” she said. “Anyway, that’s everything that happened.” She sighed tiredly.

Quinn pulled Rachel close to her and enveloped her into a tight hug.

Rachel put her hands on Quinn’s shoulders and pushed slightly “Stop being nice to me.”

Quinn held onto her. “No,” she whispered. It was obvious to her now that Rachel needed a friend, and since Rachel had always been a good friend to her, Quinn felt that she should be a friend to Rachel. She gave Rachel a tight hug and then let the brunette go.

“I’m hungry,” Quinn declared. She stood up and held her hand out to Rachel. “I’ll buy you some frozen yogurt.”

Rachel smiled hesitantly. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”

Quinn sighed. “A little bit,” she admitted. “But I’ll get over it.” She smiled at Rachel. “We’re friends, right? We can do mean things and say mean things to each other and we end up getting over it, right?”

“Right,” Rachel said quietly. She took Quinn’s hand and let herself be pulled up.

“Rachel,” Quinn said softly. “I want you to know that what I said to you-- about there being something wrong with you, I didn’t mean it. There’s _nothing_ wrong with you. You’re a good person and you’re nice. You _are_ built for relationships, you just weren’t built for a relationship with Puck, which, let’s face it, just makes you smart, not fucked up.”

Privately she thought Rachel was just afraid. That maybe Rachel felt _too_ much all the time and so she just wasn’t letting herself fall in love. But it just seemed like the wrong time to say something like that, even though Quinn hated the idea of letting Rachel continue to believe like there was something wrong with her. Rachel just seemed to sincerely believe she was incapable of falling in love just because she hadn’t been able to fall in love with Puck and Rachel just seemed to feel too raw. Quinn didn’t want to start spouting things that sounded like clichés, clichés like maybe Rachel was just afraid, because in Rachel’s current state, it would probably just hurt more than anything else.

But she did want to make Rachel change her mind about herself. It didn’t have to happen right away. But Quinn did think it had to happen.

“Let’s just get the yogurt, okay?” Rachel asked. She wasn’t in the mood to talk.

“Sure,” Quinn said softly.

\--

Rachel always thought it was a cliché that talking about things made people feel better. She just didn’t understand how talking about things made anything better. But then she realized that after talking to Quinn, she _did_ feel better.

When she was actually talking to Quinn, she was mostly just embarrassed for herself and wanted to curl into a little ball and die. She knew Quinn was already aware of that she was a selfish person and self-absorbed, but she didn’t want Quinn to know just how deeply selfish and self-absorbed she truly was. Now it was all out there, and things between them didn’t seem so bad. They were better, even. That dark guilt she kept feeling, all those awful feelings she carried around with her seemed to lift. Not completely or anything, but it stopped being so exhausting to put on a happy face at school and in front of her dads. Now when she laughed like a dork at something at school, she could actually feel it again. She still felt guilty every time she looked at Noah, but his anger seemed to be softening so that he even smiled at her during Glee practice again. It was all just a lot more bearable.

In the month that passed since her talk with Quinn, Rachel felt like herself again and things felt good for the first time in so long.

One day after school, Rachel popped in the earbuds to her iPod and laid down on the floor in her bedroom. Quinn wasn’t home yet and Rachel wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, because sometimes, it was nice to be alone, but most of the time, it was better when Quinn was there.

Not too long afterward, she felt Quinn gently pull out an earbud.

Rachel cocked open one eye. “Hey,” she smiled.

“Hey,” Quinn said, she smiled at Rachel and laid down on the ground in the usual position, so that the top of her head pressed into the top of Rachel’s. It’d been such a long time since they’d done this. It’d been such a long time since it seemed like Rachel even wanted to, because for a long time, Rachel put her earbuds on, laid in her bed with her back to Quinn-- the underlying message being she wanted to be left alone. Quinn peeked at Rachel’s iPod and saw that it was set to shuffle, which was their tradition.

Quinn knew with certainty that this was an invitation and it was one she eagerly accepted. Quinn put the earbud into her ear and smiled approvingly.

 _How does it feel? How does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home. Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone_.

It was the _one_ Bob Dylan song that Quinn could stand. She hated every other Bob Dylan song, at least, the way he sang it. There were plenty of Bob Dylan songs that she liked when _other_ people sang them, but this was the one song that she _loved_ when he sang it, for whatever reason.

Quinn was in a good mood by the time the next song came on.

_Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred moments, five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure, measure a year?_

Since it was Rachel Berry’s iPod, there was always a high likelihood that when the iPod was set to shuffle, the next song to come on would be a song off the soundtrack to some musical. Most of the time, even when she liked the song, Quinn used one of her nix allowances just because it outraged Rachel. They agreed that nixing a song meant there would be no protest from the other person, and Quinn thoroughly enjoyed the way Rachel’s mouth would open to speak, and then shut. And then Rachel would begrudgingly hit next. Of course, she knew Rachel did the same thing to her, but that was half the fun of it. But Quinn really liked this song, and she decided she’d use one of her nix cards for a song that she really didn’t want to listen to.

Even though she’d been really down on Glee Club before she joined, she really _loved_ music. She probably loved music as much as Rachel loved it, and she really believed this was one of the best ways to listen to music. Not while she was studying or reading a magazine or making out with Finn. The best way was just like this, with the top of her head pressed to the top of Rachel’s, with the two of them sharing one seat of headphones. No distractions from the music except for the beat of her heart and the way she felt for the girl in the room with her.

_When I think of those east end lights, muggy nights. The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs…_

“This is Elton John, right?” Quinn asked.

“Uh-huh,” Rachel murmured.

“I like it,” Quinn said with a sigh.

“Me too.”

The last song Quinn remembered hearing was ‘In a Manner of Speaking,’ but the version by Nouvelle Vague. She thought it was weird that she’d probably fallen asleep to it, because it usually just kind of made her feel sad. When she woke up, it was because Olivia Newton John and John Travolta were singing a duet. Quinn shook her head slightly and grinned. Rachel had a deep, abiding love for _Grease_. Rachel often sang in the shower, and if she wasn’t singing something from _Wicked_ she was belting out something from the _Grease_ soundtrack.

_I better shape up, if I’m gonna prove…you better prove… that my faith is justified. Are you sure? Yes, I’m sure down deep inside. You’re the one that I want_

Rachel was still asleep, but somehow, one of the brunette’s feet was moving to the beat. Quinn found that to be painfully cute. She also found it cute that Rachel often slept with her lips slightly parted. It was sad how cute she found Rachel, it really was.

“Rachel,” Quinn said, sitting up and wincing. She put her hand to her sore back. Wasn’t sleeping on the ground supposed to be good for her back? Her back hurt like hell. She poked Rachel’s cheek with her finger several times. “Rachel, wake up.”

“Stop it,” Rachel said, not opening her eyes. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Get up,” Quinn said, poking Rachel’s cheek again with her index finger.

Rachel’s eyes remained closed. She swatted at Quinn’s hand, but the blonde moved it away so that Rachel slapped her own face. “Ow!”

Quinn burst into laughter. “Way to go, Smart Girl.”

Rachel opened her eyes and rubbed her face. She gave Quinn a dirty look, sat up and stretched. “I wonder where my dads are,” she said, picking up her iPod and glancing at the time. “They’re both usually home by now.”

“They’re having dinner with one of Dan’s clients or something, remember?”

Rachel frowned. “Oh yeah.” She looked up at Quinn, her head cocked slightly to the right and smiled. “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

“Yes,” Quinn said with a grin. “I would.”  
\--

Quinn had a hankering for pasta and Rachel grinned and said she knew a place where they could go. Her fathers loved Vincenzo’s, but they didn’t go there much anymore, because she tried not to eat a lot of pasta since it was fattening. But she really did love Italian food and it turned out Quinn loved Vincenzo’s, too.

“I used to come here with Finn,” Quinn reminisced as they waited for their food. “He would always steal off my plate.”

Rachel smiled fondly at the thought of Finn. She really did adore him. It used to just be a physical attraction. He appealed to her because he was so tall (she found their difference in height to be incredibly intriguing) and he was really handsome in sort of a non-threatening way. But he was such a good friend to her, and she would always remember him for being the friend she really needed when she had no one else to go to. She’d always remember how non-judgmental he tried to be, how he swore he would never, ever in a million years tell _anyone_ and to her knowledge, he never did. But despite how unconditionally supportive he was, she knew from the look on his face that he didn’t approve of her lying to Noah, didn’t approve of her decision. She knew from the way his eyes looked and the way his jaw was set that he was disappointed in her.

If he were a different kind of guy, Finn would have told Noah, not necessarily to hurt her, but to hurt Noah for hurting him. But Finn wasn’t that guy. Finn was the guy who picked her up at her house one early morning, drove her to West Virginia and stayed in the Planned Parenthood waiting room the _entire_ time. He was the guy who kept apologizing for the roads being bumpy on their drive back, who made sure she was comfortable. He was the guy who, when he dropped her off at home, patted her thigh, completely platonically and told her she was going to be okay. When she kissed him on the mouth despite the fact that she was cramping and felt sick because she felt like she had to do _something_ to thank him, he touched her cheek and told her that if she really wanted to start something, she could find him when she felt a little better. He was the guy who offered to walk her to the door and looked _really_ torn when she asked him not to, because she didn’t want to rouse any suspicion. He was the guy who never said anything when she never sought him out for anything other than friendship, because she really didn’t want to kiss him, she just felt like she owed him. A less decent guy would have wanted to collect, but Finn wasn’t like that.

It made her unspeakably sad that his girlfriend, his best friend and now she had all disappointed him. He didn’t deserve that. She’d seemed to disappoint so many people she cared about lately-- her fathers, Finn, Noah, Quinn…it was a new feeling for her to be so disappointing on such a huge level.

“I promise not to steal off your plate like Finn,” Rachel said.

Quinn smiled. “Well, you wouldn’t steal seventy five percent of my plate like he did, so you can share.”

Rachel smiled. “You can share mine, too.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Finn’s a really good guy,” Rachel said softly.

Quinn’s smile dimmed slightly. “Yeah,” she said quietly. She used to think about what she did to him all the time. When she was pregnant, hardly an hour went by when she didn’t feel such overwhelming remorse for betraying him and then lying to him. Enough time had passed that she didn’t think about it every day. There were times now she could look at him and not think about how she’d hurt him, and she hoped he could sometimes look at her and not think about how much she hurt him. But she still thought about it.

“I really hope he gets what he wants,” Rachel said wistfully. There were people like Finn and Brittany who she just hoped life would work out well for them, no matter what they chose. She looked at them and she hoped they got everything they wanted in life. Not that she looked at other people and hoped they would be beset with the ten plagues of Egypt or anything, just that she looked at Finn and Brittany in particular and wished them well.

“Me too,” Quinn said softly.

Their food arrived at the table, which seemed to lighten the mood of the table. Rachel seemed to be stealing more food off Quinn’s plate than she was actually eating from her own plate and Quinn realized that she was doing the same thing. Quinn chuckled and picked up her plate and switched it with Rachel’s.

Rachel looked at her in surprise.

“You like mine better, right?” Quinn said. “And I like yours better, so we might as well just do it.”

Rachel laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

Rachel smiled crookedly at Quinn, only one corner of her mouth rising up. “I guess you’re the gutsy one in this relationship, huh?” she joked.

Quinn smiled back. “One of us has to be.”

They finished their meal and Rachel paid the check, over Quinn’s protests. Not that it really mattered because Rachel’s fathers were the ones giving them both money, but still, Quinn didn’t want Rachel to pay for everything. Quinn swore to herself that one day, she would pay Rachel and her fathers back for everything they did for her. She didn’t think anyone would treat her with such unconditional kindness and warmth when her own family completely cut her off, but the Berrys had, and Quinn would never forget it, not in a million years, not even if science somehow enabled her to live to be a thousand.

The kindness Rachel and her fathers showed her had gone a long way to make Quinn feel like she had a secure place in the world. Even when things were awkward with Rachel and every moment just _hurt_ , she’d never been genuinely afraid that she’d get kicked out of Rachel’s house, even though the thought had crossed her mind. She’d been hurt and angry, but she hadn’t been afraid.

Rachel drove back to their house and Quinn scrolled through Rachel’s iPod as they drove. Rachel’s iPod plugged into the auxiliary plug in Rachel’s stereo and Quinn was in the habit of finding a song, making fun of Rachel for it and then playing it through the car speakers anyway. It was tradition. Like the time Quinn made fun of Rachel for having “Part of Your World” from _The Little Mermaid_. She loved that movie, but she didn’t have the soundtrack on her iPod. She started out just wanting to mock Rachel for having the song on her iPod, so she’d played it. But then she actually got into it, and she ended up playing the song three times and singing along each time, which made Rachel threaten to delete it off her iPod.

“Oh!” Quinn exclaimed, finding a song she really liked. “I like this song.”

“Well, play it,” Rachel said with a grin. “Just not if it’s from _The Little Mermaid_ ,” she added quickly.

Quinn scowled. “It’s not,” she said.

Quinn played the song and Rachel turned to grin at her. The song played and then Rachel started to sing along, softly at first, until Quinn joined her and then they both sang along at a more normal volume.

_“Walking waking on a crowded street with my headphones loud so my hips can swing, so my head can nod to the rock and roll to the boom boom beat”_

Rachel and Quinn turned to each other and grinned, and instinctively leaned their heads close together and began to sing as loudly as they could.

_“And I find that I’m never alone, and I find that my heart is my home, and the music within me makes me whole, a world that I built on my own. And I know I’m never alone, and I know my heart is my home, every missing piece of me, I can find in a melody.”_

They sang along until the song finished and they laughed, looked at one another and smiled. Quinn hit the ‘back’ button and they repeated the whole thing over again.

They were in good spirits when they walked into their house, arm and arm and giggling, just liked they used to do. Rachel had no idea how much she missed this until she had it again after such a long famine. Once they got to their room, Rachel pulled out her laptop to work on a paper for Government and Quinn opened hers so she could finish up her paper for the English class she shared with Rachel.

“How’s it coming along?” Rachel asked, looking over at Quinn.

Quinn pulled out her earbuds. “What?”

“How’s it coming along?” she repeated.

Quinn grinned. “The second sentence in my second paragraph is coming along,” she said.

“ _I_ wrote the first paragraph for you!”

Quinn shrugged. “It’s not due for another two days. I told you, I work better under pressure.”

Last minute pressure worked for Quinn, but Rachel just liked to be prepared.

“Let me see what you have,” Rachel said, standing up. She walked to Quinn’s side of the room and sat next to Quinn on the bed and peeked at Quinn’s laptop.

“You don’t have a second sentence!” Rachel exclaimed accusingly, outraged.

“I said it was coming along, not that I had one!” Quinn said with a laugh, because she loved how Rachel always seemed to be on the verge of exploding whenever she left things until the last minute. School had never been a problem for her, she’d always done well, and although there were subjects in school that she had to work a little harder in-- math and sciences, mostly, she always kicked ass in her English classes. She could afford to procrastinate in English.

Rachel slapped her shoulder. “Doofus.”

“Hey,” Quinn said. “That’s my pet name for you. Give it back.”

Rachel laughed and leaned in close. “Even though you call me names like doofus and shorty--”

“I’m being factual,” Quinn interrupted, with a deadpan.

Rachel laughed again and she brushed an errant lock of hair out of Quinn’s face.

Quinn swallowed hard, feeling suddenly flustered. She wished Rachel hadn’t done that, because all it did was stir up all her feelings for Rachel, and whatever feelings Rachel had for her, seemed to be gone. The action was just too intimate, and while Rachel had done that to her countless times before, just as she’d brushed hair out of Rachel’s face on countless occasions, it just felt too intimate when Rachel did it to her. It may be nothing to Rachel, but it wasn’t nothing to her.

“Even though you call me names,” Rachel said with a soft smile. “You are a really good friend to me.” She impetuously hugged Quinn. “I don’t know how I would have made it through these past couple years without you,” she said sincerely.

Quinn stroked Rachel’s hair. “I don’t think I would have made it without you either,” she admitted. She truly meant that because she was living with Rachel and her fathers, and she had no idea where she would be if she weren’t.

But now she was just struck by how _sad_ she felt. She didn’t know how a day that went so well and made her feel so good would end with her wanting to burst into tears. She’d told Rachel once that she loved her, and then she’d lied and told Rachel it was all a lie, something that was just said in the heat of the moment. But the problem was, it _wasn’t_ a lie. And even worse, her feelings weren’t going away.

It didn’t matter Rachel told her she didn’t think she could love her. It didn’t matter Rachel basically flat-out told her she didn’t want to love her. It didn’t matter Rachel practically begged her to take it back. In the month that passed since their talk, she had Rachel again. Things with Rachel were good and fun again and feelings for someone didn’t go away when things were good and fun with them.

Rachel said such sweet things to her-- things like, “you are a really good friend to me” and “I don’t know how I would have made it through these past couple years without you.” The problem was Quinn believed Rachel was being completely sincere. Rachel was being completely sincere, and it just made Quinn want something more with Rachel. She knew her feelings would eventually go away-- feelings tended to do that. But when Rachel said things like that to her, it just made things _really_ hard.

It was just that …it was just that she felt if Rachel would just give them a chance, let them see where all this was going, then she thought they would have a halfway decent chance. Rachel would undoubtedly be off to Julliard-- they would know this soon enough because the admission letters were due to come. But Quinn was thinking about New York City, too. Or Boston or New Jersey. Somewhere close. She was still trying to figure it all out, but she thought she was going into debt to pay for school anyway, so it really didn’t matter how much the school cost, because she would be paying off her student loans for the rest of her life anyway. The point was, New York could definitely be in her future, too and then they wouldn’t have to worry about saying goodbye. Quinn felt like if Rachel would just give them a shot, they could have a pretty good chance at making it.

Rachel just seemed so convinced she wasn’t built for a relationship, that she just couldn’t fall in love. But Quinn was reasonably certain if Rachel just gave it a chance, Rachel could fall in love with her. Quinn didn’t think she was being arrogant, although she did possess a pretty high opinion of herself. But she really didn’t think she was being arrogant. Getting pregnant in high school and having everyone stare at her and talk about her did a pretty good job of humbling her more arrogant and self-obsessed tendencies.

It was just that she felt a _pull_ with Rachel, and Rachel had already admitted to having feelings for her both before and after they’d slept together. So it wasn’t arrogance that made Quinn believe Rachel could fall in love with her if she’d just allow herself. Quinn just had a feeling that it could happen. And besides, Rachel seemed more afraid of being hurt than anything else and Quinn thought she could assuage that fear.

It’s not like she’d wanted this to happen either. She didn’t want to fall in love with a girl, and she didn’t want to fall in love with _Rachel_. But she had, and she mostly accepted it. There were still days when her mind completely protested the situation as unthinkable. There were days when she was secretly glad Rachel seemed so unwilling to fall in love with _anyone_ because it meant that Rachel would stay single (this was selfish of course), so she wouldn’t be completely jealous seeing Rachel with someone else but Quinn wouldn’t have to actually act on her feelings and could still give off the appearance of normalcy. There were still days when she thought she was living in the Twilight Zone and just wanted to go back to Normal, but the truth was, she really loved living in the Twilight Zone, loved it a lot more than she’d once loved her life in Normal.

Quinn had given it a lot of thought-- a _lot_ of thought once she stopped refusing to think about what it meant that she peeked when Rachel dressed and undressed and really liked it when Rachel was physically close. She’d given it a lot of thought, and what she realized was that it really didn’t bother her as much as she thought it had. It really didn’t scare her as much as it used to.

After all, she didn’t have to be afraid of her family’s reactions, because they didn’t consider her to be a part of the family anymore. She didn’t have to be afraid of their rejection. Santana and Brittany were completely gay for one another, so it wasn’t like she feared being rejected by her friends. Her life had already veered off into a completely different direction than the one she’d planned for herself, so it wasn’t like falling in love with Rachel completely screwed up her life’s plans.

Once upon a time, she planned on meeting a good man, falling in love and having children with him and being happy together. But instead, she cheated on her sweet boyfriend with his rude best friend and got pregnant, had a baby and gave up that baby for adoption. Her life had already taken such completely unexpected detours, falling in love with Rachel was hardly the source of a major freakout. She knew that it was more about who she loved than who loved her back, but it still completely sucked to be in love with someone who didn’t seem to reciprocate, who clearly adored her but very firmly and emphatically told her she wasn’t looking for anything deeper than friendship.

“I’m really glad we can be friends again,” Rachel said quietly.

“Yeah,” Quinn sighed. “Me too.”


	6. Chapter 6

 

“You look pretty today,” Rachel commented pleasantly. She smiled at Quinn.

“Thanks,” Quinn said softly.

Rachel gave Quinn a fond smile and impetuously kissed Quinn’s cheek. They were close enough that they could do that to one another, and they did it a lot. It was almost a habit for Rachel now. Not that they did that to each other every day, but Quinn looked particularly pretty that morning and the blonde had been so nice to her all morning. It just felt appropriate. She smiled again at Quinn and then turned away to open their bedroom door so they could go downstairs and get to school.

Quinn reached around Rachel and shut the door. “You need to stop.”

Rachel looked at her blankly. “What?” she asked in confusion.

“You need to stop,” Quinn repeated. “You need to stop telling me I look pretty before we go to school. You need to stop, like, brushing my hair out of my face or kissing my cheek or like, holding my hand.”

Rachel flinched and she looked at Quinn, her expression wounded. “I was just following your example,” she said, her voice wavering ever so slightly.

Quinn grimaced. “I need to stop, too. But you, _you_ really need to stop.”

“I don’t understand,” Rachel said softly. “Did I do something wrong? What did I do?”

Quinn felt tears spring to her eyes. “You need to stop,” she said calmly. “Because when you do that, it just…it _confuses_ me, okay?” She clenched her fists in frustration. “It makes things _hard_ on me. I have _feelings_ for you and not just feelings. I _love_ you. I’m in _love_ with you. When _I_ kiss _you_ , it’s because I can’t stop, okay? Even though it’s just on the cheek, I can’t stop myself. I just do it, and every time I do, I always regret it because I shouldn’t do it because it makes things way harder on me than they need to be.”

Rachel looked almost ill. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she said. She put both hands in the air, palms facing Quinn like she was putting up a physical barrier between them, which in actuality, she was. She took a few steps back. “You’re right, I shouldn’t do that.”

Quinn looked pleadingly at Rachel. “Do you really not feel anything for me?” she asked hesitantly. “Is it seriously all in my head?”

Rachel was silent for a long moment and then she sighed raggedly. “It’s not all in your head,” she admitted quietly. She looked down at the ground and winced. “Take it back,” she begged, she took a step forward, closer to Quinn and then seemed to think better of it. She took a few steps back. “You’re just saying that stuff, right? You don’t mean any of it. Take it back.”

Quinn swallowed hard, and it physically hurt because her throat felt so raw. “No.”

“Why are you saying this stuff to me?” Rachel asked. “You…you _can’t_ mean it. You can’t. Just… _take it back_. Nothing has to change, just take it back.”

Quinn shook her head. “No.”

“Take it _back_ ,” Rachel pleaded. “We can pretend this never happened.”

“No,” Quinn said quietly.

“Quinn, listen--”

Quinn stepped forward and grabbed Rachel by the arm. “No, _you_ listen. I _won’t_ take it back.” She released Rachel’s arm and took a step back. “It doesn’t matter what happens between us, but things can’t just stay the same. Something needs to change. You _confuse_ me and it’s not fair that _you_ want things to stay the same, but the way things are confuse _me_. I’m not telling you this to hurt _you_ , I’m telling you because I’m tired of you hurting _me_. You _hurt_ me. You hurt me _every day_ when you _act_ like you love me and then tell me we’re just friends. You _hurt_ me. Something has to change and it was never going to if I didn’t tell you. So I’m not taking it back. You’re stuck with it, okay? You’re stuck with it just like I’m stuck with it. And that’s just _too_ bad for you because you _hurt_ me and you don’t even _know_ it!”

Rachel let out a ragged breath, like she’d just been punched and all the wind had been knocked out of her. “Okay,” she said quietly, head bowed. “Tell me what I need to do. What needs to change? Whatever you need, whatever you want. I’ll do it. Just tell me.”

“You… you can’t…you just can’t be all affectionate with me,” Quinn said. “It’s just really confusing for me. I don’t…I don’t know what I need you to do. But I just… I mean, stop telling me that I look pretty, because it makes me think that you’re _noticing_ me and then I think about what it means that you’re noticing me. You just…you need to stop what you’ve been doing.”

Rachel bit her lower lip. “So, like…do you want to stop hanging out? I--”

“No!” Quinn interrupted quickly. “Of course I don’t want to stop hanging out. It’s just…” She grabbed Rachel’s arm again. “You told me it’s not all in my head,” she said desperately. “It’s not all in my head, right? You’re feeling this, too, aren’t you?”

Rachel looked torn. She also looked terrified, even more terrified than the day Rachel tried desperately to calm Puck down while he screamed at her and slammed his fists and his feet into lockers that were just _inches_ away from her.

“Quinn,” Rachel said quietly. “We should get to school.”

“Rachel! Just talk to me. We should--”

“I want to talk,” Rachel interrupted softly. “But I just…I need some time to think.”

Quinn looked at her dubiously. She was getting the brush-off, she just knew it. “And you plan on thinking about this while you’re in class?”

Rachel smiled at her. “I’m really good at multi-tasking.”

Quinn chuckled in spite of herself. “Are you really going to talk to me? Or am I going to find out that you’ve moved to Canada or something just to avoid talking to me.”

“I don’t have a current passport, I need to renew it.” She looked thoughtful. “It’s so unfair that you get stuck with a bad passport photo for like, ten years.” She smiled at Quinn. “Not that you need to worry about that, Miss Incredibly Photogenic.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “You could fit into a really big envelope and mail yourself to Canada. You’d totally fit in a mailbox.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “I’m not mailing myself to Canada,” she said exasperated. “Look, why don’t we cut out during lunch and come back here and talk? We can skip the rest of the day if we need to.”

Quinn looked skeptical. “Are you being serious?” she asked suspiciously. “You’re not going to stand me up?”

“When have I ever stood you up?”

“Well, you’re not exactly known for hanging around when you’re uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.” That was a lie, Rachel was deeply uncomfortable and she actually did want to run off, although she’d thought of Europe instead of Canada. She wondered what Mexico was like. But she knew she owed it to Quinn to talk. She just needed some time. “ I just need some time to think. I have to, like, collect my thoughts. I have stuff I want to tell you and I want it all to make sense. Okay? So can we just go to school right now?”

Quinn looked at her in askance but sighed. That last thing she wanted to do was to go to school. She wanted to crawl under the covers of her bed and cry. But Rachel was looking at her with such vulnerable hope, she couldn’t deny her. “Yeah, okay. Let’s meet at your locker after third period and we can come back here.”

“Okay.”  
\--

Rachel was quiet on the drive back to the house, but at least Rachel was there. Quinn was honestly a little surprised to see Rachel at her locker, because Quinn had been fairly sure that Rachel wouldn’t show up. But she was glad that Rachel had.

They went back to the house and walked into together, although not arm-in-arm as they’d done so many times before.

“Are you hungry?” Rachel asked.

Quinn shook her head. “No, are you?”

“No.”

“Let’s just go upstairs. Let’s have this talk, okay?”

Rachel nodded. “Okay,” she said softly.

Quinn followed Rachel up the stairs and into their bedroom. Once inside, with the door closed, Rachel turned and faced Quinn. She gave her a small smile.

“It’s not all in your head,” Rachel said softly. “I do have feelings for you,” she admitted quietly.

Quinn smiled brightly. “Why was that so hard for you?”

Rachel swallowed hard and winced. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t _want_ to have feelings for you and I don’t want you to have feelings for me.”

Quinn’s smile dropped. “I don’t get it. You’re not with anyone, I’m not with anyone. You have feelings for me. I have feelings for you. This should be a no-brainer.”

“You said you love me,” Rachel said quietly. “You said you’re _in_ love with me. And I do love you, Quinn. I _really_ do. Other than my dads, I don’t think there’s anyone I love as much as I love you. But I don’t think I could fall _in_ love with you, and that’s what you want. I don’t think it’s in me to do it.”

Quinn reached for her. “Hey,” she said softly. “Look, you’re just…you’re just _scared_ ,” she said. “It’s not that you can’t fall in love, you’re just scared to do it. And I get it, because it _is_ scary. _I’m_ scared. But this, this is a no-brainer.”

Rachel shook her head and pulled away from Quinn. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “We’re both going to go to college soon, and I don’t see why we should make it harder for ourselves to leave Lima. This isn’t the time to start _anything_ even if we wanted to. I mean, we’re just going to get attached and it’s just going to make us both sad and we’re both going to get hurt.”

“I applied to NYU _and_ Columbia, you know that. There’s a good chance we’re both going to be in the same city in the Fall,” Quinn said quietly. “And even if we aren’t, it doesn’t mean we’re going to end up sad and hurt, Rachel.”

“Noah _hates_ me,” Rachel said. “He dated me and he told me he loved me and now he _hates_ me. I _hurt_ him. I don’t want to hurt _you_.”

“I’m not _Puck_.” Quinn snapped. She swallowed hard. “Let me worry about me,” she said quietly. “You worry about you and let me worry about me. Rachel, if you even _like_ me a little bit, this should be a no-brainer.”

“I don’t want to lose you as a friend,” Rachel said. “You are so important to me,” she said softly. “I don’t think you understand how important you are to me. Your opinion of me, how you see me, it really matters to me. It matters _so_ much. If we do this, your opinion of me _will_ change. And I don’t think it will be for the better. I _really_ need you, and if we do this, I won’t have you at all.”

Noah could at least look at her now, and sometimes smile, but most of the time, the _look_ on his face when he looked at her made her feel awful. She didn’t think she could stand it if Quinn started looking at her that way, too. She’d hurt Noah so terribly, she didn’t want to do the same thing to Quinn.

“You’re just afraid,” Quinn said quietly. “Just stop being afraid. We can do this.”

“You’re not gay,” Rachel blurted.

Quinn was taken aback. “What?”

“You’re not gay. I’m not gay. It makes no sense to do this. This whole thing, it makes no sense. What are we even doing here?”

“First of all, you don’t know that about me,” Quinn said, irritated. “Secondly, now you’re just grasping at straws, so _stop_ it. And thirdly, maybe I’m not gay, maybe the only girl I like is you. But the point is, I like you. I mean, there’s a huge possibility that maybe I’m just Rachelsexual, although, quite frankly, at this moment, I have no idea why I am, and I kind of wish I weren’t. Whether I’m gay or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I love you. Even though you’re nowhere near as smart as I thought you were.”

Rachel gave her a tiny smile. “It’s kind of sad how when you say things like that to me, I just like you more.”

Quinn chuckled softly. “It’s because you’re dysfunctional. But I am, too, because I kind of like the fact that you’re dysfunctional.” It was, indeed, truly sad how that did not diminish Rachel’s appeal one bit. In fact, it only increased Rachel’s overall appeal. God, she was dysfunctional.

Rachel bit her lip, glanced down at the floor and then up again. “I have to tell you something, and it’s really awful,” she said. “It’s really terrible.”

Quinn looked at her cautiously. “Did you buy a plane ticket to Canada or something?”

Rachel laughed. “No.”

“Did you sleep with JewFro?”

Rachel looked _horrified_. “Ew! No!”

“Were you the one who lost my BeneTint lip balm?”

“That was Santana.”

Quinn was outraged. “I knew it! Why did you say you didn’t know?”

“Santana is scarier than you are.”

Quinn huffed, but did not respond to the assertion that Santana Lopez was somehow more intimidating that she was. “Did you kill someone? Drug someone? Pillage a village? Rob a bank?”

“No!” Rachel laughed. “Stop it.”

“Then what could be so awful?” Quinn asked softly. “You’re so hard on yourself.”

Rachel hesitated. “I…I really don’t _want_ to be gay,” she admitted. “Everyone would tell my dads they shouldn’t be parents because they were just going to have a gay kid. Everyone acted like my dads were these horrible people for having me, but my dads are _so_ great. And when I liked boys, they just seemed…relieved,” Rachel sighed. “Like they were glad. Like they were happy.”

“Rachel,” Quinn said. “Your dads would understand. They’d understand more than anyone else!”

“I think they’d be disappointed.”

“That’s stupid,” Quinn said bluntly. “They wouldn’t be disappointed about that. They know what that would feel like.”

“I just feel like… like being gay would justify everyone who ever said my dads shouldn’t be parents.”

“Since when did _you_ live your life by other people’s rules and expectations?”

“I know it’s stupid,” Rachel said quietly. “But it’s how I feel.”

Quinn sighed. “You’re right, it is stupid,” she said bluntly. She sighed. “But I get it though. It’s this stupid town. It’s this stupid, narrow-minded town.” She remembered the time her father drove by Rachel’s house one Sunday after church. Her sister was still living at home then and Quinn was probably in elementary school at the time. Someone had graffitied Rachel’s garage and Quinn remembered her father chuckling and then rolling down his window and hurling his leftover coffee on Rachel’s lawn. She hadn’t even known Rachel then, and back then, Quinn thought it was hilarious. Quinn liked to believe that maybe her father was just kind of an asshole, and he was, but the truth was, he was pretty much the average person in Lima. God, she hated this fucking town.

“I can’t wait to get out of this town,” Rachel muttered, seeming to read Quinn’s mind and startling the blonde in the process. “I am not _ever_ coming back. I mean, yeah, to visit my dads, but I am never coming back to this town to live. I hate this town.”

“Rachel,” Quinn said softly. “You don’t have to be gay,” Quinn said. “We’re still just figuring everything out. But don’t just shoot me down because you’re afraid of what other people think, because I guarantee you, your dads are going to be fine with whatever you decide for yourself. And don’t shoot me down because you’re scared.”

“I’m _not_ scared.”

“ _Yes_ , you are. Everything you’re telling me, all of it boils down to the fact you’re scared. It’s not that you _can’t_ love someone, doofus. It’s that you _won’t_ and you’re too stubborn to see the difference. You’re just _afraid_.”

Rachel’s eyes hardened. “I’m _not_ afraid.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Let this go.”

“No,” Quinn said. “You _need_ to listen to me. You need to just get out of this rut. You need to--”

“Shut up,” Rachel said softly. She pushed forward, closing the distance between them in milliseconds. Their bodies were close, but only on the verge of touching. Rachel touched Quinn’s neck with her hand.

Quinn swallowed hard, but she didn’t move. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

Rachel’s eyes were teary. “This is all I’ll ever be able to give you,” she said softly. “This is all I’ll ever be able to give anyone.” She stood up on her tiptoes and leaned up. She put her hands on Quinn’s shoulders for balance. Her lips hovered close to Quinn’s. “Why are you trying to make me prove it to you? Why are you trying to make me hurt you? I don’t want to. This isn’t worth throwing away our friendship, and we’ve worked so hard to be friends. This isn’t worth it. Why do you keep trying to make me prove it? Why?”

Quinn called Rachel’s bluff. “Prove it to me,” she said flatly, brushing her lips against Rachel’s.

Rachel pulled back. “What are you doing?”

“You’re saying that I’m making you prove it to me. So fine, prove it to me.”

“Quinn…”

“No,” Quinn said. “Prove it to me. And if what you’re really telling me is true, then fine, I can’t blame you. I promise you, I won’t hold it against you. So prove it to me.”

“This is stupid.”

“You started it,” Quinn said. She pulled Rachel toward her. “So prove it. Prove it to me that all you can give is sex.”

Quinn was furious and upset. She was hurt and she was a little afraid. But there was this small part of her that was turned on by all of this, as dysfunctional and hurtful as it was. Quinn knew she was going to push this until Rachel broke.

“Don’t make me prove it,” Rachel pleaded.

Quinn scoffed at her. “Prove it, big shot. If you aren’t afraid, then prove it.”

Rachel smiled sardonically at her. “Fine,” she whispered. “Just remember,” she said, cupping the sides of Quinn’s neck, “that when you hate me, I’ll hate myself more.” She stood on her tiptoes, her lips close to Quinn’s, but not touching. “If you don’t want this, if you don’t want me, then don’t kiss me back and we can pretend like this day never happened.” She took a deep breath and pressed her lips against Quinn’s.

Quinn kissed her back.  
\--  
Rachel was different this time. She wasn’t mean-spirited or cruel enough to be flat-out harsh or rough with her, but she wasn’t as sweet as she was the last time. Rachel was still gentle with her, almost too gentle. But there was none of the inherent sweetness or reverence. Rachel didn’t tell her that she was beautiful, or perfect and Quinn didn’t feel that way at the moment. Quinn wondered if she’d completely miscalculated, that maybe Rachel knew herself better than anyone else did, so maybe Rachel really could just have sex with her and not want anything more. She’d called Rachel’s bluff, or at least, what she thought was Rachel’s bluff, but maybe Rachel wasn’t bluffing. And Quinn wasn’t prepared to deal with what would happen if Rachel wasn’t bluffing.

Rachel touched her face. “We can stop,” she said softly. “Just say the word.”

Quinn swallowed hard at the sight of Rachel naked and hovering over her. She grabbed Rachel’s hand and slipped it between her legs, moaning when she felt Rachel’s fingers make contact. “ _Don’t_ stop.” She was having second thoughts, but she had physical needs, too. She didn’t _want_ to stop.

“Okay,” Rachel said softly, she gave a slight nod like she was accepting everything for the first time. Her lips met Quinn’s in a hard kiss, demanding, harsh and insistent.

Quinn moaned as Rachel’s lips kissed her and her fingers touched her. Quinn’s hips involuntarily bucked up, trying to get more of Rachel.

“Rach,” Quinn gasped out, her eyes clenching closed. “Rachel, I love you.”

“Shut up,” Rachel warned harshly, her breath hot against Quinn’s cheeks. But Rachel’s fingers kept moving. “Don’t say that to me.”

“I love you.”

“Shut _up_. Tell me this is all you want,” Rachel hissed, her fingers curling in such a way that Quinn’s mind went blank for a moment and she had no idea what the hell Rachel was saying or why Rachel was even talking. “Say you want me, say all you want to do is fuck, say you hate me, but don’t tell me you love me. Don’t!”

Quinn released a strangled cry, from deep in her throat. “But I do,” she choked out.

“You won’t,” Rachel breathed into her ear. “You won’t. You say it now, but you’re going to take it back anyway, so just take it back now.”

“ _No_.”

Rachel’s body slid down the length of Quinn’s. Quinn could feel Rachel’s breasts and then her lips slide against her chest and then her stomach until finally she felt Rachel’s hands on her thighs, felt Rachel’s head between her legs. Quinn clenched her fingers into Rachel’s hair and released a guttural moan when she felt the first lick of Rachel’s tongue.

She came hard, crying out and then she was breathless and exhausted. Quinn panted, moaning out a few deep breaths and then she reached for Rachel who’d rolled away from her and was now curled into the fetal position, facing the wall. She pulled at Rachel so that Rachel’s body uncurled. “Come here,” Quinn husked. She moved so that she trapped Rachel’s body with her own. She kissed Rachel’s neck. “Your turn.”

Rachel shifted. “No,” she whispered. “Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

“What’s the matter, Berry?” Quinn asked, her voice taking on a slightly mocking quality. “Are you afraid you’re going to fall in love with me if I fuck you instead of the other way around?”

Rachel’s eyes were defiant. “This wasn’t for me, this was for you,” she hissed.

Quinn shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she murmured, stroking Rachel’s face. “This is all for you.” She kissed Rachel, sucking at Rachel’s lower lip for just a moment before she pulled back. “If this is all we can have, then let me do this, just once,” she whispered into Rachel’s ear. “You barely even let me touch you. If all we have is this, then let me do this.”

Her fingers touched Rachel’s breast and Rachel released a tiny whimper.

Rachel trembled. “Don’t. _Please_ don’t.”

Quinn smoothed her right index finger across Rachel’s right eyebrow. “Then I’m going to ask you again,” she said softly. “Are you afraid you’re going to fall in love with me if you let me touch you? Because I love you.”

“Stop,” Rachel pleaded. “Stop talking. Stop saying that stuff!” She pushed at Quinn’s shoulders. “Get off me.”

Quinn stared down at Rachel. “If I touch you, are you afraid you’re going to fall in love with me?” she repeated softly.

Rachel’s face trembled. She swallowed hard. Rachel turned her face away, unable to look Quinn in the face. “ _Yes_ ,” she finally admitted, her voice raw and resentful. Her eyes pooled with tears. “Now get off me.”

Quinn released her and Rachel immediately curled into a small ball, her back to Quinn.

Quinn hesitantly touched Rachel’s bare back. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she whispered. She hugged Rachel’s back. “And I don’t hate you. The only person who hates you right now is you,” Quinn murmured. “Don’t be afraid.”

“We shouldn’t have done this,” Rachel whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Quinn pressed a small kiss to the back of Rachel’s neck. “Don’t be afraid,” Quinn repeated. “Because I know you’re braver than this.”

Rachel shut her eyes as hard as she could. Her hands covered her face. She took a deep breath and relaxed her stiff limbs. She rolled over to look at Quinn. “Are you okay?” she asked, peering intently at Quinn.

“Yeah,” Quinn said, confused by the abrupt change in demeanor. “Are _you_ okay?”

“Yeah,” Rachel said brightly. “Of course. But we should get back to school. We have Glee.” She sat up and bent down to pick up her discarded top. “Get dressed.”

Quinn put her hand on Rachel’s back. “Don’t do this,” she said softly. “Don’t act like an asshole to me just because you think it’s the only way to prove to me that you can have sex and not get attached. Just say you don’t love me, but _don’t_ be a jerk to me. I deserve _way_ more than that from you, and I _know_ there is no way you treated Puck like this after you had sex. So _don’t_ do this to me.”

Rachel picked up her top and Quinn’s. She passed Quinn’s shirt to the blonde and then put on her top, buttoning it down. “You’re right,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Quinn pulled her shirt over her head. “So was it just sex?” she asked quietly.

Rachel bit her lip. “No,” she admitted softly. “It wasn’t.” She absently reached out to tuck Quinn’s hair behind her ear. “I do love you,” she whispered. “And I think…I think I was in love with you for a long time-- long before today. “ She nodded slightly. “I _am_ in love with you,” she said quietly.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Quinn said softly, with a teasing smile. She cupped Rachel’s cheek with her hand. “This is a no-brainer. I love you. You love me. We’re supposed to be together. It shouldn’t even be a debate.”

“This is not going to end well,” Rachel whispered. “You know that, don’t you? You’re going to end up hating me.”

“Or, you could end up hating me,” Quinn joked gently.

Rachel gave her a sad smile. “If you have to hurt me, do it fast, okay?” she whispered. “Don’t drag it out and make me love you more. Just do it.”

“I’m not going into this thinking that I’m going to hurt you,” Quinn said quietly.

“I don’t want to hurt _you_ ,” Rachel said softly.

“I’m a big girl,” Quinn said. “Bigger than you, actually,” she joked. “I’ll watch out for me, you watch out for you. I won’t be a jerk to you, and you won’t be a jerk to me and let’s see how it works out, okay? Can’t we…can’t we just be in love?”

“This won’t end well,” Rachel whispered. “You’ll see.”

“I don’t care.”  
\--

Rachel knew she was one of those girls who was a better friend than she was a girlfriend. She knew Quinn deserved better. She knew Quinn deserved to be treated better. But Rachel was doing it the best that she could. She tried to tell Quinn she loved her every day, because Rachel knew there were probably a lot of days when Quinn didn’t feel very loved. She tried to do something every day to prove to Quinn that she did love her, that she was in love with the blonde even if she wasn’t very good at showing it. And for whatever reason, Quinn just seemed to accept her as she was.

“If I hadn’t pushed for it, I would have wondered about it for the rest of my life and that’s worse than anything else,” Quinn told her quietly one night.

Rachel generally had a realistic picture of herself. She knew she was reasonably attractive, that she had a decent body despite the fact that her birth mother probably had been a little limited in the breasts category, too. She knew she had a good singing voice, a great one, really, and she was looking forward to developing her talent in college. She knew she wasn’t such a bad package.

But she knew she was selfish. She was that typical only child who grew up being the centre of her parents’ attention. Her fathers worked so much and so she’d been alone a lot while she grew up. They vastly overcompensated for the fact she spent most of her childhood in daycare, babysitters, after school programs, dance classes, singing lessons, piano lessons and Hebrew school-- anything and everything that would occupy her for a few hours after school until her fathers could pick her up. They overcompensated for the fact that she spent most of her childhood lonely and alone by lavishing attention on her when they were around.

She’d been overindulged, particularly by her Daddy Daniel, and she knew it. Sometimes she was thankful that her Dad John had been harder on her than Daddy was, because she recognized now how terribly selfish she was. She was completely self-absorbed and pretty cutthroat. If someone from the admissions board at Julliard guaranteed her admission if she’d break-up with Quinn, Rachel was ashamed to admit she’d think about it, and if she weren’t so confident that she’d get in on her own merit. If she weren’t already so confident, she was sure she’d do it. She knew she’d regret it, but she’d do it anyway, because that was who she was.

But Quinn saw her better than she saw herself, and that meant to world to Rachel.

She didn’t want to be gay, didn’t want to be in love, didn’t want to be in love with a girl and didn’t want to be in love with Quinn. But she could be gay, and even if she weren’t, even if Quinn was the one and only girl she could ever possibly love or be intimate with, it still wouldn’t change the fact she was in love with Quinn and that they were together.

Quinn kissed her cheek. “Stop thinking so hard,” she said. “We’ve already established that I’m the smart one in this relationship. So stop thinking about ways to get out of it or why we shouldn’t. Leave the thinking to me.”

Quinn’s tone was teasing, but Rachel could see the fear and trepidation in Quinn’s face. The last thing she wanted was for Quinn to be afraid.

“You’re right,” she said, giving Quinn the brightest, toothiest smile she could. “You are the smart one.” She shut her eyes. “Guide me,” she said, sticking her neck and head out.

Quinn cupped Rachel’s cheeks and kissed her forehead. “Trust me, Rachel,” Quinn whispered. “Don’t be afraid. No turning back, right?”

“No turning back,” Rachel agreed with a nod. She had to tell Quinn this at least twice a day, but Rachel didn’t mind. Quinn needed convincing and she did, too. Barack and Michelle bumped fists, and she and Quinn told each other there was no turning back. It worked for them.

No turning back. It was the best and the most that she could do and Rachel hoped it would be enough. Maybe it would and maybe it wouldn’t, but it was too late to turn back.

“Just trust me and stick with me, and we’re going to be fine,” Quinn said.

I know,” Rachel said softly.  
\--

The first batch of college admissions letters came a few weeks later. Rachel, of course, was accepted into Julliard, which should have been no surprise to anyone. And of course, Rachel was going. There was never any doubt.

But Quinn had a harder time with her choice.

“BU or BC?” Rachel said during dinner one night. “You should go to one of those, that way, I’d have somewhere to visit.” She gave Quinn a toothy grin.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “Yes, Rachel. I’m going to choose where I go to college based on where you want to visit.”

“Well, if you really wanted to do that, you’d go to UCLA. But it’s too far away. Boston is definitely doable though.”

Quinn looked at Rachel intently. “Maybe I’ll go to NYU and be closer to you.”

Rachel blinked, clearly flustered. “Uh…”

“That would be great!” Daniel cut in, oblivious to the fact that his only daughter was on the verge of swallowing her tongue. “Because then we wouldn’t have two different cities when we visit you girls,” he said with a grin. “We could even have dinner together, all four of us and it’ll just be like you girls were still living at home.”

Quinn beamed at him. “That would be a definite pro.”

He smiled back

Quinn wanted to go to Columbia, but she wondered if she only wanted Columbia because she was subconsciously following Rachel. She didn’t want to be that girl, not even for Rachel. If they were going to work, they would work through distance, too.

“I think,” Rachel said softly. “You should go where you think you’d be happiest, not by like, some arbitrary school ranking system by the Princeton Review. Because all the schools you got into are really great, and I know you’ll do well in any of them. So I think you should just think about where _you_ really want to go, and where you’d be happiest.”

She chose Columbia.  
\--

It amazed Rachel how quickly a year, and then two, three, four could pass. Every year spent in Lima felt eternal, but once she moved to New York, time just seemed to pass so quickly. Her life had changed so much in the four years she’d lived, studied and worked in the City. Now she was just a couple weeks away from graduation. So much had changed, but there was one constant.

“Get your feet away from me,” Quinn mumbled. “God, how can your feet be this cold? It’s _May_. You should get your circulation checked.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my circulation,” Rachel said, oddly offended. But she was always vaguely offended every time Quinn told her to get her circulation checked. She put her feet on Quinn’s bare calves.

Quinn shrieked. “Get those icicles away from me,” she said, rolling away from Rachel. “I _hate_ it when you do that!” she complained.

Rachel laughed and moved closer to Quinn. “Come here,” she murmured. She ran a finger down the slope of Quinn’s shoulder. She kissed the back of Quinn’s shoulder. “You just want me to chase you.”

Quinn snorted and turned around. She moved herself forward and pressed a quick kiss to Rachel’s lips. “Please,” she said. “You’re the one that likes to be chased.”

“Yeah,” Rachel conceded with a smile. “But only by you.”

“Keep it that way,” Quinn warned softly.

Rachel smiled at Quinn and stroked the blonde’s hair. “I don’t want it any other way,” she murmured.

“What about Tanorexic Ken Doll?”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “His name is Josh.”

“ _Josh_ ,” Quinn mocked. “God, who still goes to tanning salons? He’s not even a Ken.” She paused. “Does like, Skipper, have a boyfriend?”

“Skipper?”

“You know,” Quinn said. “She’s like Barbie’s little sister. Josh would be Skipper’s boyfriend, not Ken.”

Rachel laughed. “He’s not so bad.”

“He likes you,” Quinn said balefully. “And you always indulge him.” She rolled her eyes. “’Oh, _hi_ Josh. No, I can’t. I have plans. But maybe another time!’” she said, her voice high-pitched in what was supposed to be an imitation of Rachel.

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Are you done?”

“No,” Quinn said. “’Oh, Josh! You’re so funny!’” She snorted. “And then you always do that really fake hyena laugh.”

“It’s not a hyena laugh. It’s my fake polite laugh. And anyway, your polite laugh is like this-- ha. Ha. Ha.” Rachel deadpanned. “Just like that. Ha. Ha. Ha. It’s barely even a laugh!”

Quinn pinched Rachel’s shoulder. “You sound like the hyenas in _The Lion King_. Mufasa Mufasa Mufasa!”

Rachel laughed and pretended to shiver, just like Whoopi Goldberg’s hyena character did in the movie.

Quinn giggled. “Mufasa Mufasa Mufasa!”

“Oooh,” Rachel said, once again pretending to shiver. She traced over Quinn’s collarbone with her finger, absently writing her initials. “You’re not really upset about Skipper’s boyfriend, are you?”

“Ha!” Quinn exclaimed. She laughed and hugged Rachel. “No, of course I’m not upset about Skipper’s boyfriend. I just like to give you a hard time.”

“Good,” Rachel said with a crooked grin. “Because there’s only you for me.”

Quinn smiled. “So these four years at Julliard have turned you into such a charmer, huh?” she teased. “Because when we first moved here, you could barely admit that you even liked me.”

“I’ve grown,” Rachel said. She looked at Quinn warningly when she saw the blonde was about to interject. “As a person,” she added quickly. “Yes, I know, I’m short and haven’t grown since I was fourteen. I remember,” she said dryly.

Quinn smirked. “It’s cute that you’re trained,” she joked.

“Any _way_ ,” Rachel said, swatting at Quinn’s shoulder. “I’ve grown as a person. You’re supposed to do that in college.”

Quinn kissed Rachel’s nose and smiled. “I say we’re doing pretty well,” she said softly. “I say it’s always going to be me for you, and you for me. What do you say?”

Rachel smiled. “I say that sounds good.”

\--

Looking back at the past few years with Rachel since they both graduated from college, Quinn could concede that it hadn’t been all easy. After all, Rachel was Rachel and she was Quinn, and sometimes, Rachel and Quinn together brought out something painful and dysfunctional. In the years following graduation, there’d been multiple break-ups with excuses about finding themselves to make sure they were really right for one another. There’d been shoes flung at the wall (Rachel), accidentally-on-purpose murder of a house plant (Quinn) and one lockout of a shared apartment with the other person banging on the front door and pleading to be let in (Rachel, alternately yelling and begging with Quinn on the other side of the door, torn between apology and malicious triumph).

There’d been drunken three 3am calls pleading to be taken back, unannounced 10pm visits to mutual friends’ apartments to drag an angry girlfriend back home, sleepless nights spent with one woman in the bedroom and the other woman on a couch in the living room. There’d been sobbing late night arguments and angry mornings. There’d been slammed doors, drawers and cutlery. There’d been sullen silences over meals in restaurants, with people at other tables looking at them curiously. There’d been arguments over money, priorities, chores, petty and not-so petty jealousies.

When they finally admitted that they were pretty much settled down after being beaten to the altar by Brittany and Santana, they decided on trying to have a baby. Rachel went first with Finn’s sperm and they were lucky for fifteen weeks before their luck ran out, Quinn spent two hours pleading to a locked bathroom door while Rachel sobbed on the other side. She spent another two hours trying to pick the decrepit old lock on their bathroom before Rachel came out, smiling brightly and acting like the last four hours never happened. It took an entire mostly sleepless week where Rachel buzzed around like a bunny on methamphetamine, taking down the nursery they’d started to construct and telling everyone and anyone who listened that she really didn’t care, really wasn’t all that attached to some baby that was probably only going to cramp her style before she locked herself in the bathroom again, sobbing that God was punishing her for being so selfish when she was seventeen. It’d taken a call to an all-night locksmith to get Rachel out of the bathroom that time, and Quinn feared for an entire month that maybe it was over between them. But it wasn’t. It was just turbulence and they weathered through it like they always did.

It wasn’t all easy or good, but it wasn’t all bad or hard either.

After all, there had also been entire afternoons spent listening to music, teenager style, with heads pressed together and one set of earphones between them. There’d been conversations that lasted into the wee hours of morning and giggles in the shower when the water turned cold. There’d been celebratory dinners over winning a part and admission to grad school. There’d been breathless, scorching kisses and moments when they touched one another and believed that nothing else in the world mattered. There’d been a myriad of inside jokes, whispered to one another during boring graduate school mixers and award shows.

Rachel was twenty three when she was nominated for her first Tony. She didn’t win.

“It was an honor just being nominated,” Rachel said with a smile after the fifth person to give her a sympathetic, ‘it should have been you!’ condolence.

Quinn put her arm around her. “Please, you wanted to win.”

Rachel kept her smile for the rest of the world. “Duh,” she said. “I totally wanted to win,” she admitted through her smile. “It’s not an honor just to be nominated, I wanted to win.”

“It’s okay,” Quinn murmured kissing Rachel’s cheek. “We can let the air out of Connie’s tires or something,” she joked.

Rachel grinned. “You’ve always been the Bonnie to my Clyde,” she mused.

“Excuse me?” Quinn said. “You’re Bonnie. _I’m_ Clyde.”

“Please.” Rachel snorted.

Later, when Quinn recounted this story to Santana, Santana laughed heartily.

“Please,” Santana said. “You guys aren’t Bonnie and Clyde. Sonny and Cher, Bert and Ernie, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, maybe. But not Bonnie and Clyde.” Santana laughed again and then Quinn could hear Santana yell. “Hey, Brittany, you wouldn’t believe what Quinn just told me.” Santana laughed again and Quinn rolled her eyes and hung up because she knew Santana was now preoccupied and wouldn’t notice.

Ten years after they left Lima together, Rachel and Quinn sat on a bench in Artie and Tina’s backyard three months after the birth of Tina and Artie’s second child and celebrating the third birthday of their first.

Quinn caught Rachel looking wistfully at little Stella Chang-Abrams running around the backyard with the other kids celebrating.

“We’ll have our chance, baby,” Quinn whispered. Even after three years, Rachel insisted she did not want to try again, and Quinn was in no hurry. They’d rushed into it back then and long after it happened, once it stopped being so raw and painful, they could concede that it probably had been for the best. Maybe it was a lie they told themselves and each other, but it was one that worked for them, and why couldn’t they allow themselves this small measure of comfort?

Rachel smiled. “I know,” she said simply. She touched Quinn’s knee. “Every family starts out with just two,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Quinn said with a grin. She pecked Rachel’s lips. “Santana and I have this bet whose girl is gonna win the most kiddie games. You versus Brittany. We’ve got fifty bucks at stake.”

Rachel kissed Quinn back. “I’ve got this covered,” she said.

Four hours later, Rachel sat next to Quinn in the car ride back to Rachel’s fathers’ house, looking considerably more disheveled than she arrived. She had a grass stain on her back, but Quinn wasn’t about to tell her that.

“I swear to _God_ , Brittany is part octopus,” Rachel griped. Brittany was tall and her arms and legs just seemed to be everywhere.

“It’s okay,” Quinn soothed. “I’d still bet on you.”

“Now we’re out fifty bucks.”

It wasn’t the money, it was just that time had not cured Rachel of her obsessive competitive streak.

“Please!” Quinn exclaimed. “I didn’t pay her, why do you think we had to sneak out of there like we were starring in _Mission Impossible_?” She paused. “We better leave really early tomorrow. And wear a disguise at the airport because I think Santana and Brittany are going back to LA tomorrow, too.”

Rachel smiled. “And Santana thinks you aren’t the Bonnie to my Clyde.”

“I’m Clyde. You’re Bonnie,” Quinn corrected.

Rachel laughed. “No way,” she said.

Rachel threw back her head and laughed again. As Quinn drove, she looked at the woman with whom she’d spent the last ten years loving and fighting. There were still days when she looked at Rachel and felt her chest clench up and a lump rise up in her throat. It didn’t matter when Rachel self-deprecatingly referred to her breasts as The Great Plains or lamented that her nose was too big. She was still the prettiest girl Quinn ever knew, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world. And when Rachel laughed, Quinn still thought that was the best sound in the world.

“Hey,” Quinn said, turning to look at Rachel when they were at a stop sign.

Rachel looked at her with a bright smile. “Yeah?” she asked.

“I love you,” Quinn said. “Even if you do have a leaf in your hair.”

Rachel’s hands reached up and brushed at her hair furiously. “Brittany!” she cried out in outrage.

Quinn laughed and reached out to pull out the leaf. “I can’t believe you are 28 years old and I still need to groom you,” she teased.

Rachel grinned at her. “I’ve never denied that my survival depends on you,” she quipped.

Quinn realized she’d been at the stop sign for too long and looked both ways before driving forward.

“Feeling’s mutual,” Quinn said softly.

As she drove through their old hometown to the house she and Rachel had basically grown up in, because Quinn didn’t think she really grew up until she lived with the Berrys, Quinn thought about how her 18 year old self got almost everything she ever wanted. Sure, there were daily annoyances, like the awful plumbing in their supposedly fancy apartment complex, exorbitant rent, smelly subway cars and misplaced dry cleaning. Sure, there’d been days when she thought her heart couldn’t break any more, and then it did. Granted there’d been days when she yelled at Rachel for forgetting to take her hair out of the shower drain again, when Rachel in all honesty, hardly ever did that, and things with Rachel and their lives--separately and together, weren’t perfect.

But she got the girl. She loved the girl, and the girl loved her. And that was basically as close to perfect as they were going to get. It wasn’t one hundred percent perfect love, but she wouldn’t trade her short, cranky, hyper competitive, obsessive compulsive girlfriend for all the world. Rachel still tended to withdraw when she was upset, that teenaged girl who was Slushied and bullied and therefore believed no one would care when she was in distress was still crammed inside Rachel, and not particularly deep inside. But again, Quinn wouldn’t trade her in for the world.

Quinn knew herself and was honest with herself enough that she could acknowledge her faults. She was often still selfish; she was hypercritical, particularly of Rachel; she was impatient, jealous and still capable of meanness. She still had a tendency to shout things in anger that she didn’t mean, and more often that not, the target was Rachel. There were times when she should just bite her tongue, but she never did. There were still days when what she said could reduce Rachel to tears and she would have to apologize, beg and reassure, that no, no, of course she didn’t meant it, she was just being mean.

But even still, Quinn was confident of the fact that Rachel wouldn’t trade her in either.

“You’re beautiful, you’re perfect and I love you,” Rachel had told her just that morning.

They drove up to Rachel’s fathers’ house and they walked in together, arm in arm, giggling like they used to when they were just a couple of ridiculous high school girls. Rachel shouted at her fathers that they were home.

“They’re not deaf, you know,” Quinn said, elbowing Rachel gently in the ribs. “How is such a little body capable of such noise?”

Rachel grinned at her. “You love it.”

Daniel came in and greeted them happily.

“Hi Daddy,” Rachel and Quinn chorused.

“John!” Daniel shouted. “Our girls at home. Hurry up! We don’t have them for very long!”

“Be right there!” John shouted back, from wherever he was in the house.

Rachel looked at Quinn smugly. Quinn shook her head and couldn’t help but laugh.

Quinn believed they were going to make it when she was 18. Then there’d been a few rough patches when her faith was tested and her confidence was shaken. They’d loved, teased, angered, frustrated and exhausted each other. But they made it through. So now, now she was sure.

They were going to make it.

“Hey,” Quinn said, poking Rachel’s shoulder. “No turning back?”

Rachel smiled. “No turning back.”

 

The End


	7. It’s All I Ask

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff. Well, MOSTLY fluff. This is a follow-up to “Absolute Beginners”. You know that last part that chronicles their lives post high school together. This is an expansion. Mildly.

**Title:** It’s All I Ask  
**Author:** Sulkygeek  
**Rating:** PG  
**Length:** 4000 words  
**Spoilers:** Let’s just say through Sectionals, even though I don’t think there are any  
**Summary:** Fluff. Well, MOSTLY fluff. This is a follow-up to “Absolute Beginners”. You know that last part that chronicles their lives post high school together. This is an expansion. Mildly.

* * *

 

They are 20 years old and living in their first apartment together. They make it on money from their financial aid checks from school (they’ll have to pay this back later once they graduate in the form of student loan payments, but they don’t think about this yet), part-time jobs, the occasional part that Rachel wins while she’s in school and money from Rachel’s fathers, which they both accept with some embarrassment. Rachel plans on making her mark on Broadway so that it will never be the same again. Quinn wants a quieter sort of life-- her girl by her side, enough money in her pocket to pay the bills with some left over to have a night out and not worry about how much her meal is going to be. But she wants Rachel to get what she wants, and more than wanting what she wants, she wants what Rachel wants.

They live in the moment and agree to worry about the future another day. Mostly, they find out more about one another and discover what it _truly_ means to live together where there is no one else around to buffer their interactions, when they have to talk about paying bills and all that.

One day, Quinn intently watches Rachel as the brunette sits on the floor instead of just bending down. She seems to expend an intense amount of concentration tying her shoe, her mouth parting and the tip of her tongue slipping out ever so slightly. Quinn is curious, wondering if her girlfriend is trying to send her some kind of subliminal message, if Rachel is trying to tell her something rather than just coming out with it.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying my shoe.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

Rachel continues to tie her shoe. “Damn,” she says in exasperation. “You’re distracting me!”

“From tying your shoe?”

“Yes! Be quiet a minute.”

Quinn watches Rachel and frowns. “Are you using the bunny ear method?” she asks, with a laugh.

Rachel blushes. “Stop watching me! I’m trying to tie my shoe.”

Quinn laughs. “Oh my God, you are 20 years old and you are using the bunny ear method.”

Rachel pouts. “I don’t know how to tie it the other way!” she shouts in outrage. She stands up and puts her hands on her hips. “I’m going for my run.”

Quinn stares at her in disbelief. “You don’t know how to tie your shoe?” she asks, bursting into laughter. “You don’t know how to tie your shoe?!” She wonders how she could have been with Rachel for all these years and not realized that. After all, she’s lived with Rachel

Rachel pouts and kicks at a spot on the floor. “I know how to tie my shoe,” she says defensively.

“Like a _grownup_?” Quinn teases.

Rachel is outraged. “The bunny ear method is perfectly acceptable.”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Quinn says clutching her stomach and laughing so hard, she doubles over

“I’m going for a run,” Rachel huffs.

“Wait, wait,” Quinn gasps, trying to control her laughter. She laughs so hard, she brings her fists up and down without realizing she’s doing it. .

“What?”

“Let me see if I can find you some of those shoelace clips, you know, the kind with piggies and ducks on them so little kid’s shoes don’t come unlaced?”

Rachel sighs in exasperation. “ _Why_ would we have those? Are you done making fun of me?”

“No! Wait, wait. Let me see if you fit into one of my shoes-- I know I have some old running shoes with _Velcro_!” Quinn’s voice cracks as she says the last word, her voice rising up an entire octave and she can not contain her laughter anymore.

Rachel rolls her eyes as Quinn continues to laugh. She huffs, glares at Quinn, who only laughs harder at the look on Rachel’s face, and stalks toward the door.

“I’m going for a run.”

Quinn laughs. She catches up to Rachel, hugs the brunette and kisses her cheek. “Don’t worry, it’s not a deal breaker,” she murmurs. “You already look like a little kid anyway.”

Rachel snorts and gently elbows Quinn, but she turns her head to smile fondly at the blonde. “I can do other things the grown-up way,” she says petulantly.

“I know, baby.”

\--

They are 23, and can’t believe that they were better off as broke 20 year old college students than broke 23 year old college graduates.

They are poor. The rent check is always a stressor and there are lots of arguments about frivolous expenditures of money. They eat a lot of tuna (when it’s on sale, they buy in bulk) and ramen (five for a dollar) and pop a lot of generic Aspirin, because their lives are pretty chaotic. They fight a lot, drink a lot of cheap alcohol and lose a lot of things (keys, jewelry, pens, bets, etc). Their lives are absolute chaos. At 23, they wouldn’t know that they would look back on this time in their life and kind of miss it. But when they are older, they will admit that it was all fun-- the poverty, the fighting, the consumption of food with limited nutritive value, the chaos. It was fun and they miss it for a long time. Until they don’t.

At 23, they listen to a lot of music, teenager style, lying on the floor, and smiling at one another as some song evokes a particularly strong memory. Another one of their favorite ways to pass the time is to play Kill Fuck or Marry, because it’s free and they can play it without ever leaving their apartment. They’ve been playing for a few years, and Rachel demanded immunity from all answers before she agreed to play for the first time.

As the years go on, they attempt to make the game progressively more difficult to play.

One night, Quinn tries to come up with the three most difficult choices she can muster.

“Okay!” Quinn said. “Sue Sylvester, Emma Pillsbury or Puck’s mother.”

Rachel looks positively horrified. She is so horrified, in fact, that she actually does a double take and gasps, her hand clutching her heart. “Quinn! Mrs. Puckerman treated me like I was _her_ daughter. I can’t kill, marry or fuck her!”

Quinn smiles smugly. “The whole point of the game is to make it difficult.”

Rachel groans. “You are not nice.”

“You’re not with me because I’m nice.”

“You’re right. It’s because I find you so aesthetically pleasing.”

Quinn scowls, although she is pleased, bone-deep pleased that Rachel still finds her so attractive after so many years together. “Answer the question!”

Rachel thinks a moment and then sighs heavily. “Okay, I’d fuck Sylvester--”

“Seriously?!” Quinn gasps. She is genuinely horrified. She’s a little queasy and wondering if she should have even asked.

Rachel’s cheeks are pink. “Well, you have to admit, she was kind of intriguing.”

“Yeah, okay,” Quinn begrudgingly concedes. “And what about marry or kill?”

Rachel glares at Quinn. “It would be so unfair if God strikes me dead even though He should just be after you for asking this question.”

Quinn wants to laugh. “Just answer it!”

“I’d marry Emma Pillsbury and kill Mrs. Puckerman,” Rachel admits with a huff. “Because I can _not_ have sex with Mrs. Puckerman even in that hypothetical scenario and I refuse to be in a marriage without sex.”

Quinn smirks. “See? I told you were the sex-crazed one in this relationship.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Maybe you’re the only one I want to have sex with so much, okay?.”

Quinn grins. “Keep remembering that.”

\--

They are still 23, and then 24 and spend a year breaking up and then begging one another to take each other back. There are drunken 3am phone calls to one another pleading for a reconciliation. There are fights in which Rachel throws a flip-flop at the wall and Quinn accidentally-on-purpose kills a house plant that Rachel is trying to nurse back to health. There is at least one time Rachel returns to their shared apartment to find that the locks have been changed. She bangs on the door, alternately yelling and begging to be let in and Quinn sits in front of the door, listening to Rachel beg and yell. She alternately feels malicious satisfaction and profound regret for such a petty joy. Their mutual friend, Ava, eventually breaks up with both of them because Ava can no longer tolerate the unannounced 10pm visits to her apartment followed by the midnight unannounced visit in which one girl arrives to drag back an angry girlfriend.

They break up with another to find out if they actually belong together, or if they’re only together out of comfort and habit. They talk about needing to experience other people, spout clichés about setting something free to see if it comes back. They tempt fate by saying they’ll come back to one another, if it’s meant to be. They are too young to realize that when something is that good, they need to hold onto it, rather than worrying if it will last. They date other people, but do not fall in love. Their hearts twist with jealousy, regret and longing when they see each other with new romances.

It’s 12:30pm on a Sunday when Rachel calls Quinn. It’s been two months since they last spoke, two months since a hostile, screaming, crying argument that ended with angry grudge sex (‘grudgewank’, the English man that Rachel is casually dating calls it when she confesses it to him) and Rachel fleeing the apartment.

“We should start over,” Rachel says, her voice calm and soft.

“Okay,” Quinn says quietly.

They get back together and they stay together. They move back in together and they each feel like maybe they’ve just narrowly avoided disaster.

\--

They are 25, and decide that they’d rather be young-ish parents than old-ish parents. They talk about who should go first. Quinn is in grad school, and Rachel says it would be difficult to be pregnant in grad school while Quinn counters that Rachel’s career isn’t so stable that she could stop working to have a baby, whereas they could plan her pregnancy around summer and winter breaks. But Rachel decides that a family is slightly more important than a career. They ask Finn to donate his sperm and he does so, happily.

They get pregnant on the first try and Rachel smiles and jokes that she is lucky she is fertile. At 12 weeks, they start to tell their friends, even though Rachel is not showing. Their friends already suspect this is the case because Rachel is no longer drinking and Rachel is outraged and demands to know why people get suspicious any time she stops drinking. ‘I am not some inebriate!’ she exclaims in defense.

At 15 weeks, their luck runs out.

They enter into their apartment after leaving the hospital, Quinn’s hand hesitantly on Rachel’s back. Quinn unlocks the front door and turns back to look at Rachel.

“Baby,” she says softly, wanting only to comfort Rachel. She only manages to get that one word out before she winces at the poor choice of words.

Rachel bursts into tears, bolts into their bathroom and locks herself inside. Quinn follows after her and tries the door, but finds it locked. She jiggles it a few times and then starts to knock insistently. All she can hear is Rachel crying and wailing about how selfish she was at 17 for aborting a baby, and how she is clearly never meant to be a mother. She shouts at Quinn to leave her and find someone with a “hospitable womb” who can give her a family. Then Rachel starts to cry and doesn’t stop for four hours. Quinn stands outside the bathroom for two hours straight, begging and pleading. Rachel continues to cry. Quinn spends another two hours trying to pick the lock, listening to Rachel cry the entire time. She feels helpless and hopeless. Every second, every sob is like a knife twisting deeper and deeper into her heart. She doesn’t believe it will ever stop hurting.

 

After four hours in the bathroom, Rachel emerges, her eyes red-rimmed and shiny, but her mouth is smiling too brightly.

Rachel spends the next week running around, first taking down the nursery they’d only just started to put together and then engaging in ridiculous chores such as scrubbing the bathroom ceiling and caulking the bathtub. She tells anyone and everyone who will listen that she wasn’t all that attached to the pregnancy and she is fine. At first, some people believe her, but she gets paler, thinner and sicklier as the week goes by and people can only look at her sympathetically. “Okay, if you say so” becomes the common refrain and Rachel is blinded enough by grief and denial to believe they believe her.

She does not talk to Quinn that entire week, to Quinn, she can only say the same five words--“I don’t want to talk.”

After a solid week, Quinn comes home to find Rachel is locked in the bathroom again, and even after four hours of straight crying, Rachel refuses to come out. Another four hours pass where Quinn can no longer hear Rachel crying or doing much of anything. She sits outside the door, cross-legged with her hand on the door, pleading with Rachel to please come out. When she realizes that Rachel has been in that locked bathroom for at least eight hours, she is terrified by how long it’s been and how quiet Rachel is. She calls an all-night locksmith.

Her heart twists when the door opens and Rachel is lying on the ground, curled into a small ball, staring at the bathtub. The locksmith leaves, quietly, and bills her later. It’s $280, but Quinn is gratified for that small moment of kindness when he just leaves them alone. She tries to get Rachel to come to bed, but Rachel stays in a crumpled heap on the bathroom floor.

Quinn’s heart twists again and again over the next month when she sees Rachel spending most of her time staring at her hands and not speaking

The relationship feels over to Quinn. Rachel won’t talk, or listen. Everything Rachel does feels mechanized. Quinn is angry, helpless, distraught and tired. There is only so much she can do if Rachel has given up like this. It breaks Quinn’s heart and she knows that she will never, ever, get over this if it’s truly over.

It feels over. And it feels so unfair, because life has only started to get good.

But it isn’t over.

Quinn hears the bedroom door open one night. Rachel stands in the doorway. Rachel pauses and then crawls into the bed with Quinn. She doesn’t touch Quinn yet, and the blonde’s back is to her. It’s the first time Rachel has shared a bed with her in five weeks.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so faraway,” Rachel says, her voice so small. “I won’t do it again. Do you forgive me? Am I still your girl?”

Quinn’s eyes spill over with tears. She is crying, and it’s already messy. “You’ll always be my girl,” she says hoarsely. “Always,” she promises. “There’s nothing to forgive.” She wipes at her eyes and sniffles. “Rachel,” she says, her voice cracking. “Should we be worried about us?” It’s the one question she could never ask, and it’s the one that gets her sobbing again.

Rachel hugs her. “No,” she whispers. “We don’t ever have to worry about us.”

Quinn sniffs. “I was worried.”

Rachel swallows. “I was too. But we don’t need to worry. We’re a family and every family just starts with two.”

“We’ll have our chance,” Quinn whispers.

“I know,” Rachel whispers back.

\--  
  
They are 28 and disgustingly domestic. They’ve both become pretty good at cooking. They aren’t going to be participating in any throwdowns with Bobby Flay or attending one of those holiday cookie exchanges, but they’ve both become decent cooks, although more out of necessity than desire.

But there are still culinary disasters like this one.

Quinn sullenly slams her water glass on the table. “I know it’s awful. Stop eating it.”

There are tears in Rachel’s eyes and her nose is running. “It’s _fantastic_ ,” she says overly brightly. Time has not cured Rachel’s tendency to overcompensate for negative emotions by being relentlessly cheerful and bright. She takes a large gulp of water and sets the glass on the table.

Quinn rolls her eyes. “I put too much chili sauce in it,” she says. “It’s inedible. Even I’m not going to eat it. If you keep eating it, you’re going to burn a hole in your esophagus.”

Rachel puts her fork down and drinks the rest of her water. “Oh my _God_ ,” she says, “too much chili sauce,” she gasps. “Every bite is like a landmine in my mouth.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Quinn says, exasperated. It is that bad, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“My nose is running and like, my eyes keep tearing up like I was cutting onions,” Rachel says. “Oh God, it’s so spicy!” Rachel says this with such desperation, Quinn halfway expects her to start wailing, gnashing her teeth, beating her chest and tearing her clothes. Biblical style. Rachel gets up to get a drink of water. “So spicy!” she exclaims with a moan, wiping at her eyes.

“It’s not that bad!”

Rachel comes back to the table, gulping down water greedily. She sighs in relief. “You barely touched yours,” she accuses looking at Quinn’s plate. She’d barely been able to see it through the veil of tears that pricked her eyes while she ate, but now she sees Quinn’s plate clearly. It is undoubtedly the spiciest thing she’s ever eaten in her entire life and she’d once accepted a hundred bucks to eat a large wad of wasabi as a broke college student.

“Were you going to let me eat that entire plate?”

Quinn is amused. “I was going to see how far you took it,” she confesses

Quinn can always count on Rachel to eat whatever she cooks, even if it is terrible, with a big smile. It’s nice to have someone who loves her so much she eats her worst creations without complaining about it.

Quinn thinks about her mother, and what a fabulous cook her mother was. Even now, there are times in her life that she longs for a meal cooked by her mother. She wishes she had a mother who actually talks to her, but she doesn’t. She finds herself longing to call her mother to ask how her mother made a particular dish or favorite meal. Quinn is bound and damned determined that she’s going to have a set of meals that her kids are going to _love_ once they come into the world. She wants to have her daughters (or sons) call her up one day and ask her, “Mom, how do you make _______” and she will tell them. She doesn’t want much out of life anymore, because she has nearly everything she wants and needs, but she wants _that_.

Rachel smiles at her and takes another hesitant forkful. “It’s really not that bad,” she wheezes.

Quinn sighs. “Let’s order Chinese.”

\--

They are 30 when their first child is born. Mia is born with a full shock of dark, dark hair. She is so tiny-- 17 inches and 5 lbs, 1oz. Quinn jokes that it’s clear that this child is going to take after Rachel and need a special stool to reach the higher shelves, but she is actually terrified by how small this baby is, how fragile.

Nothing could have prepared them for how their lives change. They worry the baby will stop breathing in the middle of the night, they worry if their toys and stuffed animals are toxic, they worry if there is mold in the walls of their apartment, they loathe anyone who drives too fast or recklessly, they wish death upon pedestrians who jostle the baby carriage. They are amazed by how cute they think baby spit is, laugh about baby poop and baby vomit, giggle over baby farts and want to cry when they see baby smiles. Their hearts swell with such love for this baby, their hearts break and are put together again when their child’s tiny hand curls around one of their fingers.

Quinn thinks about the child she gave away. Rachel thinks about the baby she aborted and then the child she lost. Parts of them do wonder if God will punish them for their actions through their child. This thought keeps them up at night. They will spend the rest of their lives periodically struck with insomnia wondering what they would do if they ever lost any of their children. When you love something that much, there is always the fear that you will lose it and it is a fear that haunts them both.

Tina sends them all of little Stella’s old clothes and there are onesies with “I love my mommy”, “adorable” and “all mommy wanted was a massage” written on them. There is also a disconcerting amount of Hello Kitty baby apparel. As the kids get older, Tina will send everything from princess attire, tutus, ballet shoes to a Batgirl costume once little Stella Chang-Abrams got to voice her own desires. Mia falls in love with the Batgirl costume and for a straight month in her third year of life, she refuses to wear anything but the Batgirl costume.

There will be two more children after that, and each time, Quinn and Rachel will look at one another and think “our lives are just beginning.”

“No turning back?” one would ask the other.

“No turning back,” the other would assure.

Quinn looks at her family-- her girl, their three little kids and their yippy brainless terrier mix that followed Rachel home one day. Quinn loathed Cow with every fiber of her being when he first appeared, but she kind of loves the little mutt now. Their lives are chaos-- there is always someone crying, someone mad at someone else, meal times and bath times are veritable wars. But Quinn loves it.

‘Dear God,’ she prays. ‘This is all I ask.’

She remembers a time when she prayed for _everything_ she wanted. Money, popularity, beauty, a car, a pony, a good exam grade. But now all she wants is what she has. Her girl, their kids and their dog by her side.

It’s not a perfect life, but she’s happy, her girl is happy and their kids at least, _seem_ happy. It’s not perfect, but it’s exactly, _exactly_ what she wants.

So now she only has one simple prayer. “Dear God, please let me keep this. This is all I ask.”

It’s a lot to ask for, but it’s all she wants, all she needs.

It’s all she asks.


End file.
